Five-Hour Tour (part 2)

This was only the second time I've ever seen a snake in Hudson Highlands State Park -- and the previous time, it was much, much closer to Beacon.  

My favorite little hill-top pond on the Washburn trail,
gloriously arrayed for summer!

We almost certainly would have missed the snake at the end of the Washburn trail (where it intersects with the Notch and Nelsonville trails), had it not been for the accompanying crowd of shutterbugs.  But we stopped to see what they were looking at, and I think the snake went right in front of Emi's feet as it tried to escape for the underbrush.

One of the shutterbugs circled around to the left to intercept  the snake.  The person
stood right in front of the snake and leaned down toward the snake's head.
That just didn't seem very bright to me.

Here, it's a little more clear - snake was moving R to L, head just visible on the left-hand side.

Cairns and vines and greenleaves

Cairns on the Notch trail

Wide but fuzzy view of the cairns... 

On the Cornish trail, there's a round cement holding tank next to the trail.  It's not huge, but we counted at least 10-15 frogs here - you have to look really closely and carefully to see them all.

Three frogs

I loved the bright green piping on this frog

Larger and more toadlike

Green frog with reflection of green leaves and sky

Snake at Little Stony Point