Late Summer Heat In Nescopeck State Park.

It was another sunny and hot day here in Northeastern Pennsylvania. And another day without rain. Normally, this time of year, I’d be searching my favorite mushroom woods looking for the many edible varieties that would be growing.  Not this year, very few mushrooms growing because of the very dry weather  we’ve been having. 

So, like yesterday, I thought I’d least try walking near a creek to see if any are growing close to the water. Today I decided to hike along the Nescopeck Creek in Nescopeck State Park. I have posted blogs about this little know, but wonderful park in a few other blog post. You can search the tags on my home page if you want to read more about the park itself. 

Today, I will just share some photographs and thoughts of my roughly six mile hike in the park. I started at the parking lot near the visitor center and hiked down to picturesque Lake Francis. One usually finds the lake surrounded by fishermen, hikers and families but it was very quiet today. Only two fishermen and a few folks walking their dogs. 

I walked around the lake and headed to the  creek on the Nescopeck trail. This well maintained trail is grassy and winds through a mixed pine/hemlock/ oak/maple forest. I encountered a number of chickadees eating seeds in the trees and also heard the shrill cry of a red tailed hawk,  But the woods are a lot more quiet now since the robins and other songbirds have already left on their southward migration. 

I was surprised again finding very few insects but did see a lot of spider webs  hanging in the trees.

I left the Nescopeck trail and walked followed the Creekside trail along the meandering Nescopeck Creek. The creek was very low and I didn’t see or hear any fish jumping. Some days in the spring their is almost a continuous splashing of the fish in the waters. 

The trail winds along the creek under old pine and hemlock trees and is very dark, The shade and moist conditions from the creek did allow a few mushrooms to grow but known of the edible species I pick. 

I  than left the creek and followed the Fern trail, crossing  few streams and walking under very ancient pine and hemlock trees until again met up with the Nscopeck trail.

This time I followed the trail upward and through mixed woods where I found a number of these  “marker trees” . There were a few of them but they did not seem old enough to have been made by Native Americans but I don’t know a lot about how old these trees could be. If anyone knows anything about the trees in this area please feel free to share that information with me. 

I walked past another nice pond and onto the Woodland Way trail. This trail was not as well maintained and had some higher grass but still easy hiking although it was a fairly good uphill climb in the heat.  I encountered a sleeping deer and we bought got a scare from the encounter before he/she ran off through the under brush. 

The trail then passed through a thick pine/hemlock forest and it was cool and dark under the shade of these tall, old trees. The path was soft from the fallen needles and the smell of pine was just wonderful. 

I then walked back to the visitor center passing the butterfly gardens on the way. The flowers were beautiful but there wasn’t much activity from the bees and butterflies. It was still very hot but Summer is still on it way out and soon the cool weather and falling leaves will arrive.  Here is a link to some more photographs I took on my hike this morning. https://keepyoureyespeeled.net/photographs-5/nggallery/blog-photos/nescopeck-state-park-september-6-2015