Anna and I went for a hike today to Stissing Mountain and the Thompson Pond Nature Preserve. The entire area is owned by The Nature Conservancy and is really quite pretty.
In addition to a very steep and challenging trail up Stissing Mountain to the fire tower, we hiked a 3 mile loop around Thompson’s Pond.
In addition to a couple snakes, we saw numerous birds — most of which I hadn’t a prayer of actually identifying. Anna also captured these trees doing their snake impression:
This was the first time I’d used my new Camelbak Trail Blazer day pack. What a difference cold water makes. Before we left home, I filled the 2L reservoir and added an entire tray of ice cubes. Throughout the four hours we were hiking, the water in the pack stayed cool if not exactly cold. Anna had to bring along a water bottle, because her Camelbak was on back-order at REI.