Crow River Valley in Spring

Last Fall your editor had a misadventure on a photo outing with the River Valley Photographic Society. They went one way and I waited and waited and discovered the gang had disappeared. Since the way to Crowe River  and then the upper reaches of the lake  highway were unknown to me, retiring early on a splendid Fall day appeared to be the better course of action.

However, the plan was to return to the advertised beauties of Crowe River. So when invited this Spring for a guided trip to the valley, who was I to refuse?  And the reward was some splendid sights and  pictures all around the municipal park.
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Crowe River valley was well worth the trip with a myriad of sights and views. Now other visitors to the park said the river level had declined by about 2 feet with the big Spring runoff plus downpours. But as the picture above attest to, the river still had volume and speed. and chilly waters. Nonetheless, a few intrepid bathers went out just in front of the falls.

However, the nearby trails were beckoning and they did indeed provide some spectacular views and colors. One can only imagine what the surrounding Fall colors would be like with plenty of oaks, maples, ash – a guess of very fine Fall hues would likely not be off the mark

Here is a sampler of some of the views. Click on a panel or just wait for the autoplay function to show you all the images [your mouse has to be NOT hovering over any image]:
[iframe src=”http://www.theopensourcery.com/slideshows/gridacc/crowriver.html” width=”100%” height=”600″] Along the trail we found a mini-golf course covered in moss but otherwise playable, the last of the trilliums and columbine plus refuge from the horseflies but not some pesky mosquitoes. Along the shoreline there were tiny frogs, crawdads, and the occasional minnow. And the color of the waters was clear but tinted by the bottom  with exotic ochres and yellows.

However, for this amateur naturalist the big Crowe River  finds were some fossils in the shale rock by the falls. Now further down in the  Northumberland Hills, the Trent and Moira rivers have prolific fossil beds towards Trenton and Belleville. Nonetheless the fossils seen in the slideshow above were truly a delight.

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