Twelve people joined us this past Saturday (August 7, 2010) for the Fern Hike led by Marc Lapin, who teaches environmental studies at Middlebury College. Marc has led other hikes on the Mount in summers past, looking at the overall botany and ecology of the site. This time we decided to try something new. After a swift hike to the top of the Mount, we took a leisurely stroll down the Blue Trail ravine, identifying several species of fern along the way. We went as far as the shore of Catfish Bay -- where we got a great look at several Cardinal Flowers and a Scarlet Tanager.
One of the advantages of a nature hike is that it gets you to focus on the smaller things, and on how everything is interconnected. Marc reminded us that we had all traveled to the Mount using fern-power; that is, gasoline refined from crude oil, which is really just ancient ferns transformed by massive pressure and eons of time.