Over the weekend, we visited Swallow Falls State Park in Garrett County Maryland. The park features a wonderful 1.5 mile trail that follows along the Youghiogheny River and Muddy Creek, which are two beautiful white water waterways. It is also one of the few old growth hemlock forests in the area.

Swallow Falls itself is actually not a huge waterfall. Seen above

, it’s a still beautiful, but the rock formation to the right is really the more impressive feature.

This rock formation reminds me of the sea stacks on the west coast of the U.S. Seen below

, it really does stand alone will years of geologic layers of earth and rock visible.

These layers are actually present throughout the park, where huge rocks are haphazardly stack upon one another in layers that resemble many stone walls (or cichlid walls for fish fans) that people put together.

From the top of the falls, there are good views of the river downstream.

The trial has beautiful vistas of forest and rock away from the river as well, featuring ferns and moss under the hemlock canopy. Like the sea stack, this reminds me of the Olympic National Forest in Washington, just with less moss and ferns due to vast differences in annual rainfall.

Finally, despite the name of the park featuring Swallow Falls, the largest waterfall in the park (and in Maryland) is on the same trail just upstream from where Muddy Creek and the Youghiogheny River meet. Muddy Falls is impressive, falling 53 feet to a deep lagoon, surrounded by the same massive rock walls.

I’d recommend this park highly. It’s not a severely technical or long trail, but there is a lot of beauty and exploration to be had in a small area. Muddy Creek is also handicap accessible via a wooden boardwalk and scenic overlook down on the falls.

This weekend, we took our dogs to a reservoir near us that we’ve visited several times in the past. It was a perfect fall day, with a nice breeze, pleasant temperature, and flowers blooming.

The most striking flower was a Bidens species that was just coming into bloom, with the sunny areas full of yellow inflorescences, while shaded areas were a few days from blooming.

In terms of aquatic plants, there was an abundance of Lindernia dubia, with its’ delicate purple flowers protruding from the stem.

Mixed in with the L. dubia, was a fair amount of Rotala ramosior, which was present in strong numbers, but maybe not quite as abundant as last year. It’s tooth-cup shaped flowers were hung tight to each node.

Our dogs enjoyed chasing the geese, which were really never in any danger as the geese smartly took flight several hundred yards before the dogs ever reached them.

The water was fairly low, exposing some great rock formations and river banks. Fall is a great time of year to visit this area!

Finally, our dogs ran wild, trampling underfoot thousands of perfectly good aquatic plants, and making a great outing for us!

Last weekend, my family and I spent some time at the beach on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. While we were there, we visited Assateague Island where we caught a group of wild ponies enjoying a beautiful evening on the beach. With the group was an older foal, which was kept nearby the adults.

The ponies leisurely walked down the shoreline, giving me plenty of time pull out my camera and snap a few photos. The beach at Assateague is much nicer than in Ocean City, MD, as it’s more natural, has fewer people, and the sand itself is easier on your feet.

After the ponies passed, a few of us spent time hopping waves and collecting seashells. As I mentioned above, the sand is very fine, so it feels wonderful underfoot. Where the waves break, however, there are a lot of shells and rocks, but that makes it ideal for finding some nice ones. Out past the surf, the fine sand continues for a long ways before dropping off.

You may notice that the ponies have a bulging belly that normal horses do not exhibit. We read that this is due to drinking salt water. Some literature that they handed us when we entered the park said that the horses adapted and can now sustain themselves largely on salty water.

The park limits the number of ponies that live on the island to only what the vegetation on the island can sustain. Nevertheless, in all of the years I’ve visited Assateague, we have never left without seeing at least one pony. Most times, you see several herds from your car just by driving the short loop that goes throughout the island. Have you been to Assateague? Comments welcome!

On Saturday, we took our dogs on a hike at Gunpowder Falls State Park (Jerusalem Road) where we explored the trails there for a few hours. Little Gunpowder Falls river is a very pretty river, meandering across a large rock bed. Despite the name, we never came across any significant falls, however. Along the trail, one of our dogs discovered a toad in an unfortunate position; its back-end was fully engulfed by the unhinged mouth of a snake (see picture below). Elsewhere, the trail opened off to a large grove of poplar trees, which provided an impressive area of shade to everything beneath them. We also found a few fallen trees with basketball-sized fungus growing on them. All in all, it was a nice hike with the dogs at a location we had never explored before.

Little Gunpowder Falls (Click thumbnails for larger view)

On Saturday, a few GWAPA members met at the Suitland Bog in Suitland, MD for a guided tour by the bog’s caretaker. We visited this bog two years ago, and thought it was time for another visit. On my previous trip, I had thought I had gotten a picture of Red Milkweed (Asclepias rubra), but was corrected by a reader that infact I had not. So, this year, I’m proud to have found it, and got the picture below!

In addition to the Red Milkweed blooming, there was also another type blooming in the bog, which is shown below. Both are very pretty pink flowers. The ranger stated that the milkweeds weren’t always present in the bog, but showed up one day many years ago. He suspects that they were introduced by birds.

Also, interestingly enough, the main attraction at the bog, the Northern Pitcher-Plants (Sarracenia purpurea), are also not native to the bog. Apparently, prior to the mindset of preserving native habitats, botanists would collect interesting plants from other areas, and transplant them into habitats they believed the plants would do well. This is exactly what occured with the pitcher-plants, which were originally transplanted from New Jersey. Currently, the ranger actually has to weed out some of the pitcher-plants to prevent them from over-crowding the natives.

Another one of the carnivorous plants in the bog, Round-Leaved Sundew (Drosera rotundifolia) has been shaded out a little bit since I was there two years ago. Only a few remain, but the ranger is hopeful that some tree maintenance in the bog will help them make a comeback.

The main attraction for me personally is the Ten-Angled Pipewort (Eriocaulon decangulare), which is a magnificant grass, and was in full-bloom. One of the reasons I’m so interested in this particular plant, is that I believe it would probably grow submerged.

It’s quite easy to distinguish an Eriocaulon from other grasses, as the flower-heads are very distinctive. Fortunately, these plants seem to be doing pretty well in the bog. The ranger told us, however, that if they didn’t actively trim and maintain the area, that the whole bog would be totally reclaimed by the forest, and would likely disappear.

For that reason, I’m extremely grateful to him and his colleagues for knowing the importance of preserving this habitat, and making it available for the public to visit. I’m hoping that a few GWAPA members will be able to help volunteer a couple times a year to further this effort.