Emerald Lake State Park is located in North Dorset, VT, in a narrow valley between the Taconic Mountains to the west, and the Green Mountains to the east. The lake is small — 25 acres or so — and deep, its waters a cold green, which give the lake its name. The surrounding woods are rich in botanical and animal life. The area, home to marble quarries in the past and present, was stripped nearly bare of trees in the late 19th century, during the heyday of industrial charcoal operations. At the turn of the 20th century, Vermont is estimated to have been 89% deforested. It’s hard to imagine that these mountains were scalped bare...and I would love a time machine to go back and see what the environment was like before that devastation. As it is, the woods have grown back, and the habitat has recovered pretty well.
On Saturday 5/16, my sister B and I met there, masked and distanced, of course, and almost decided to cancel our plans, as it was overcast and chilly, with a sharp, cutting wind. We decided to stick it out, and go for at least a short hike. The trail we took skirts the edge of the beach area at the north end of the lake and threads through hemlocks, and a tumbled scatter of quartzite stones. Along the trail we saw wild columbine, Canadian wild ginger, two-leaf toothwort, two-leaf miterwort, Virgina waterleaf, red trillium, and blossoming shad trees (aka shadbush, shadberry, Juneberry) among the more notable plants.
Shad blossom. Amelachier arborea
At the south end of the lake is a chain of deep bogs and marshes, filled with alders and cattails, and of course the wetland was filled with birds. We saw ducks and I don’t know how many redwinged blackbirds, and on the far side of the bog, B spotted several yellow warblers flitting in and out of the alder scrub. There are at least two large beaver lodges here, and the wide channels these creatures have made through the reeds and sedges. By the time we reached the marshes, the sky had begun to clear and the wind dropped, turning into a very pleasant afternoon.
Painted turtle
The trail turned uphill, up a steep bank through a dense hemlock forest. At the top of the slope is a group of state park campsites, on a flat place between the drop to the marshes and the steep stony ledges on the lower slopes of the Dorset Mountain massif. (Incidentally, all the headstones at Arlington National Cemetery, and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, are made of marble from the quarries on this mountain.) Here the woods change from dark hemlock to a mix of hardwoods, primarily beech, ash, maple and oak. Here is where the songbirds are.
Before we even reached the top we were scolded by a pair of wood thrushes, calling “whichwhichwhichwhich!” as we approached. Once we reached the camping area, we didn’t know where to look first. Black-throated blue warblers, black-throated green warblers, chestnut-sided warblers, blackburnian warblers, redstarts, catbirds, ovenbirds, thrushes… Luckily the birds made it easier for us and came out in easy range of our cameras and binoculars. B saw a bay-breasted warbler and a black-throated green, while a chestnut-sided warbler obligingly posed for my camera.
“Pleased, pleased, pleased to meetcha!”
Moments after these birds had moved on, another came onto the stage. B said, “Look! Behind you, on that stump!” I turned around slowly, and there was what is often described as a “shy, reclusive bird of the deep woods” — a hermit thrush.
This beauty, Vermont’s state bird, came within 10-12 feet of us, and then slowly, unconcerned, made its way off into the hemlocks.
There were red trilliums in abundance here, and jack-in-the-pulpit, and violets — I don’t know how many kinds of violets. White, yellow, azure, lavender, purple… I will have to spend some time ID-ing species. And ramps — wild onions! B and I each nibbled on a couple of the tasty, garlicky leaves. I have never seen ramps quite so abundant as in this campground.
Yellow violet and ramps
Blue cohosh blossom, and a pollinator
Everywhere, along with the songs of birds, was the rush of water. Small streams poured down every little declivity in the mountainside, glittering in the sunlight as they splash between mossy rocks. One stream sparkled down over ledges, then disappears into the ground, evidently filtering down through the scree before reaching the flat at the foot of the slope.
We wandered a bit more, pulling up handfuls of invasive garlic mustard, marveling at the rocks and moss and ledges and birds, until, feeling a need for tea and bug repellent, as the blackflies were getting thick, we wandered back down toward the lake, and home. There are many more trails there we plan to hike this summer. It shows that you don’t have to go halfway across the continent to see remarkable beauty.
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Thank you, everyone, for your kind words for my debut Bucket! :)
