This weekend, my wife and I made went hiking in Patapsco Valley State Park. We’ve been to the park before to see some small waterfalls, but this time that part of the park was closed, so we took to the forest trails. All of the leaves have now fallen, but this allows you to see the landscape better, and for longer distances.

From a distance, fallen trees in small valleys could easily be inspiration for aquatic hardscape. Even scenes that aren’t very interesting, still have appeal, if just for some awkward bending tree trunks like the ones below. On the trail, besides the occasional mountain biker, it was pretty quiet. We saw a few squirrels, and the occasional woodpecker searching for a hidden meal, but for the most part it was a nice quiet walk through the forest.

After a few miles, we finally came back around to find a cold stream flowing over river rocks. We took a minute to listen to the trickling of the water, and enjoyed the green of the evergreen beside it. I spend a good deal of time trying to create a beautiful underwater landscape to enjoy, that it’s easy to forget that free ones are all around you outside.

We’ve had some unseasonably warm weather in our region recently, but gradually the weather has been turning cooler this week. I know many folks enjoy year-round warm weather, but for me, I enjoy the cold winters, the seasonal change, and the landscape that changes with it.

Today we took a walk near our house to some trails along the Middle and Little Patuxent Rivers. Even though we’ve had some of the coldest days of the season recently, I wasn’t expecting there to be a lot of ice on the river, as today it was well above freezing. To my delight, I was wrong; there were ice crystals everywhere along the banks and rocks.

It’s amazing how beautiful the ice can be, forming in so many different configurations. My favorite ones are the long, spiky, crystals like the ones below. Many of the rocks that are normally visible were completely consumed by ice. That said, the ice itself wasn’t really all that thick, full of air pockets, and requiring little force to be broken.

Some of the ice was a bit mushier like this below. I imagine that all of the asiatic clams normally found in this area are deep into the riverbed, trying to keep warm. Obviously, the small amount of the aquatic plant-life found in this river has long since melted away.

My favorite set of ice crystals from our walk were the ones shown below. It appeared that after the ice formed, the river and sun worked from above and below to create holes, making the unique pattern seen below.

At a distance, some of the ice formations looked more like snow banks along the river. Very pretty, creating a serene feeling in the winter forest. Despite lacking the lush green growth, and animal calls normally heard in warmer weather, the forest maintains its beauty year round.

Autumn is one of my favorite times of year, with the leaves changing colors, and the crisp, but still pleasant air turning cooler. Last year, I discovered that the reservoir I have previously collected plants from is completely dry at this time of year. An entire lake is literally dried up to a small brook, leaving a huge field of emersed growth aquatic vegetation. As if that isn’t cool enough, the dried up lake bed has natural boundaries making it the perfect place to let my two dogs run their hearts out.

Above, is Bella, our weimaraner/lab mix running herself silly. She really is a bit nutty, but not nearly as much as the grin on her face suggests.

The receded water left many large rock-outcroppings in the middle of the field. Many of these could easily pose as inspiration for an iguwami-style aquascape. The rocks, merged with the brook and autumn leaves really left a nice environment for a stroll. Most years, the leaves would be a much more intense coloration, but due to the severe drought our area has had in recent months, they’ve held back a bit.

I was quite startled halfway through our walk when I nearly stepped on this snake, slithering from the cracked earth and moving toward some shade. I haven’t a clue what type of snake it is, but nevertheless, I let it go on it’s way. Fortunately, the dogs didn’t see it!

The only downside of the afternoon was that our pants and boots were covered with hitch-hiker seed pods that did quite a good job at sticking through our pants and into skin. They came from some thistle-looking seeds pods on the top of some really beautiful red-leaved plants. Unfortunately, I’ve tried growing that plant before submerged, and it melts.

Otherwise, it was a great way to tucker our dogs out a little bit, and enjoy the fall weather. I’ll be sure to post some more aquarium-related posts this week, as I’ve been doing work on my 75G and 40G scapes. I hope you enjoyed the pictures!

This weekend, my wife and I took a short hike through a very small section of Patapsco Valley State Park in Elkridge, Maryland. I had seen a few pictures on Flickr showing a beautiful cascading waterfall off of one of their trails. We decided to go and try to get some pictures of our own. Unfortunately, the low water levels created a much less impressive waterfall, but we still had a great, relaxing, time visiting the park.

We were happy to find a number of smaller waterfalls up and down the area from the main falls. In many ways, I found the smaller waterfalls more interesting than the main one. One thing I did notice is that the pools underneath the waterfalls contained very little wildlife besides some common water bugs.

Upstream, however, was a different case. In areas with more vegetation on the banks, we spotted several large schools of fish, newts, and frogs hopping from the banks into the water on our arrival.

The creek itself was quite barren of plant life, containing only a rocky/sandy substrate. The small fish, which I believe could be blacknose dace, persistently tried to take cover in the shadows under rocks, but their shear numbers made that a laughable endeavor.

Throughout the watershed, I spotted a large number of Polygonum-looking plants, but none of them submersed. I suspect this is due to the shady habitat of the forest, the fast-moving current in the streams, and the barren rocky substrate in the water.

The forest itself is quite beautiful, with huge moss-covered rocks providing the stronghold for trees to take root along the waterside. I was happy to see that the trails themselves were not littered with significant garbage or human impact, detracting from the natural setting.

Besides the already mentioned wildlife, we spotted several butterflies, spiders, and even some whitetail deer. One tree branch (below) was covered a cotton-like substance, that upon closer inspection turned out to be some sort of insect larvae/pupa. If anyone can identify these guys, I’d be grateful.

Patapsco Valley State Park is a large area of land stuck right in the middle of overdeveloped areas of Baltimore and Howard counties. We really only experienced a very small section of the park. I’m sure we could spend an entire summer hiking through all of the trails without seeing everything there. I hope to do some more exploring of the trails, and most of all, hope to get some more waterfall pictures when the water levels are more impressive.

As I’ve posted previously, I enjoy taking my two dogs on some trails near my house that follow the Little and Middle Patuxent Rivers. Unfortunately, the trail ends right before where these two pretty rivers meet. Determined to get a good picture of this juncture, I waterlogged my shoes and headed down river, being careful not to fall on the algae-covered rocks. I probably should have waited another 30 minutes for this picture, but I hope it captures the beauty of these bodies of water. Just within 100 yards of the trail there was noticeably more wildlife, including a black snake, some large water birds, and countless little trout/bass in the pools.