Jamaica, VT Solo Car Camping Trip 5/16 - 5/19/15 - Continued

Playing catch up on some of my previous posts. Probably won't be as thorough as I originally intended, but it is what it is. Based on my written journal entries.

May 17, 2015 -

Slept well, mostly uninterrupted until about 5 AM when I was awoken by a loud and constant chorus of birds. I spent the next 2 and a half hours listening, snoozing, listening.

I used my tiny titanium Esbit stove to heat the water for my coffee and oatmeal. Using my GSI Minimalist cup, I was able to heat up 2 cups of water with one Esbit cube. Not a boil, but plenty hot enough for coffee and oatmeal. This is a great and super lightweight system. Esbit cubes sort of smell funny, so I would likely bag them separately in a backpack situation. In the above image I am also using a windscreen I made from a beer can. I'm not 100% sold on this windscreen, though it is cheap. I'm not convinced it could survive a longer trip.

The site was active with chipmunks and I had a Swainson's thrush foraging on the forest floor as well.

Plan for today was to hike from the campground to look for wildflowers, birds and a couple geocache sites. I left camp at 10:20heading onto the rail trail that parallels the West River.

Not long into the hike, I came across my first painted trillium. This was one of the plants I had hoped to find in flower. Unfortunately the ones I encountered had just gone by, the remnants of their mostly white flowers shriveling up. I was a bit disappointed, but soon came upon some that were still in flower and great shape.

Not far away I also found witch hobble, a woodland shrub, in flower.

I was a bit early for Indian cucumber root and bluehead lily. Cucumber root is something we usually see in flower during our June trips and the bluebead lily already has one or two blue 'beads'. I guess if I want to see everything in flower over the spring season, I'll have to make more trips or move closer.

Located forget-me-nots along the river when I stopped at a picnic area to play with the camera and neutral density filters.

West River shot. Love this place.

I continued along the river and located more common plants in flower that I did not take pictures of including sarsaparilla, and starflower. I did take pictures of some others that did not come out all that well, but here they are.

 Wood anemone

 False Solomon's seal

Above two images - dwarf ginseng.

Foam flower

 Early saxifrage. This might be a new one for me.

Unfortunately, most of the wake robin, or purple trillium had gone by, but I did manage to find a few still in good shape.

I made it to the end of the rail trail and exited Jamaica State Park. I decided to continue to hike to Hamilton Falls. It was such a beautiful day I was concerned it would be too busy to take any pictures and also that it would be jammed with locals looking to cool off.

 The trail from JSP climbs steadily for a good bit and eventually comes to a spur trail to the base of the falls. If you continue on you come to a road where you can walk to the top of the falls. Mrs and I were there some years ago where we encountered a number of signs warning of the dangers of swimming and diving into the pools above the falls, but the locals and probably some tourists still use them.

I arrived at the falls to find another couple exiting the area. I heard voices coming from above and presumed there were people there enjoying the water. As I made my was to the base falls I could see some people sitting around and standing on the rocks. I quickly realized that they were not clothed. Hilarious! They appeared to be in their early 20s and were either unaware or did not care that anyone was below the falls. I was not about to set up the camera here so I decided to move down stream a bit to  play with the filters some more and allow them their privacy. As I was turning to leave, one of the guys was standing in all his glory atop the falls. I watched as he leaped up and out of view into a pool below, his other male and female friends cheering as he did so. I assume these kids grew up here and know what they are doing. I certainly don't recommend it, clothed or otherwise if you don't know what you're doing. How wonderful, though, to live in such a place and be that comfortable and free with your friends.

 One of the shots I took away from the base of the falls.

While I was shooting down the stream a little bit, another couple had come down the trail and went to the base of the falls. I could see them looking up and the voices above suddenly fell silent. It was apparent that someone finally noticed they were not alone. The couple that had just come down the trail left rather quickly (HA! - prudes), and I could see now from where I was that bathing suits were back on and they were packing up to go. I felt bad that their day had been interrupted like that, but took advantage of their vacating the area. The falls were not overly full with water and I have definitely seen them with more water flowing, but there was enough to take some images. I had to stack all three of my filters as it was such a glorious day.

I left the falls around 1:40 pm and started back towards JSP. I had no luck in the past with three of the geocaches I had searched for, and was not going to try to hard this time as I had a good bit of gear on my back and around my neck. I did manage to locate one, which was not in very good shape.

 JSP sign coming back from Hamilton Falls.

West River Rail Trail.

I opted to take the Overlook Trail up and around to the campground which comes out at the sites we normally camp on. Not much new to see on the trail. I found everything to be really dry. Even the ferns growing on giant boulders were crispy. At the overlook I found that I had good cell phone reception so I took advantage of that to send text messages to Mrs.

Pano at the overlook.

I made it back to camp at 3:35. I took a look at some of the other unoccupied river sites and do believe the one I had chosen, Birch, is the best one. I enjoyed a chilly, clear evening by the fire and crawled into my sleeping bag around 11:30, the light from the fire slightly illuminating the lean-to.

Perfect.