Mushrooms and Spiders and Lakes, Oh My!

Yesterday morning was a gorgeous morning for a hike in Harriman State Park, which is located in Orange County, NY.

Walking from the parking lot, before even getting to the trail, an amazing site met our eyes.  There were hundreds of spiderwebs on both sides of the trail, which were only visible because they were still covered in dew.   Each one contained a spider, sitting in wait for his morning meal.  Imagine though, on a normal day when the dew isn’t helping to highlight these spiders?  Imagine taking a stroll through the grassy field, without knowing that every foot or less had a spider just sitting there?  Imagine brushing your legs or hands or finger tips against hundreds of webs?   Eewwwwwww.

Well, luckily there was a path through the middle of the field, so we didn’t have to walk through the spiderwebs.  We took the Arden House Rd/Arden Valley Rd entrance to Harriman State Park (off Route 17 near Monroe NY).  We then took the first road with a parking lot, parked, and walked the Arden Surebridge Trail/Adirondack and Island Pond Rd.   While a portion of the hike was a nice easy relatively flat walk, there were some steep hills to get the blood pumping.  The destination of this particular hike was a beautiful lake, Island Pond, which was secluded from all.  On the edge of the lake were stone ruins, which added to the coolness factor.  The roundtrip hike was ~4 miles; definitely worth the time.

Also while on the hike, we encountered many red salamanders, several deer (which I’ll discuss on another blog), and every imaginable color of mushroom including Purple, Red, Orange, Brown, Beige and White.  While I’m sure some, if not all of these, were poisonous, they would look great on a pizza!

Harriman State Park has 200 miles of trails.  If the one above doesn’t  sound good to you, there are plenty others to choose from.

Just watch out for the spiders.