Celebrating the National Park Service

Our daughter, Sarah, recently wrote a nice article in The Concordian about the 100 year anniversary of the National Park Service.  With the anniversary contributing to our decision to hike along the North Country Trail, we’re sharing her article as part of this blog.  Enjoy!

Crossing the Dam

We returned this weekend to continue our journey east under clear skies and a light south wind.  Today’s hike would mostly be along the Garrison Dam followed by a short jaunt south to where the trail is interrupted by the spillway (currently full of water).

Starting atop the dam we enjoyed expansive views to the south.  We were not able to locate a trail, so we followed a road that eventually provided access to the fish hatchery and airpark.  In addition to the many gulls concentrated near the dam outlet, we saw three bald eagles and one red tailed hawk.  We even caught a glimpse of an otter in a drainage ditch near the east side of the dam.

(Water tanks, turbines, and the river outlet)

(Damn, that's one big dam!  No problem seeing where we're heading today!).

Not surprisingly, soils along today’s hike were disturbed from dam construction about 70 years ago.  Periodic checking of our location revealed we were surrounded by Ustorthents, essentially a dry ‘reconstructed’ soil with very slight horizonization at the surface.

(Not quite pavement, but…)

With nothing to impede our progress, we made good time, covering 6.1 miles in about two hours.  A good day!