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June 3rd. Pine Creek Trail - Dave Kagan
June 3 Ride
I bicycled today between the southern terminus in Jersey Shore at mile-marker 168 up to Waterville and McConnell’s country store, a distance of about 11 miles. Flower situation: crown vetch (introduced into the United States in the 1950s for erosion control and now considered an invasive species) is now widely blooming in pink/lavender clusters (resembling clover somewhat), as is the mountain laurel shrub (with its glossy leaves similar to those of the rhododendron, and its beautiful five-pointed, white and off-white, “conical” flowers) and majestic purple-flowering raspberry (leaves look a lot like those of a maple tree). DCNR forester Chuck Diggan, whom I met spraying along the trail with his partner Jen, provided me with some of the information about these and other plants, including the black raspberry (which is now about at the end of its white-flowered blooming stage), ox-eyed yellow-and-white daisies (in full bloom now all along the trail), fleabane (a smaller daisy with numerous, almost stringlike white petals, also blooming vigorously and growing in places right in the rail trail gravel), Dame’s rockets (practically omnipresent purple or white, four-petaled, “top of the stalk” flowers, often misidentified as phlox) and, likewise, four-petaled yellow rockets (or winter cress).
Animal situation: I passed three Peter Cottontails hoppin’ on what perhaps they consider to be their own bunny rail trail. I passed about a half-dozen crazy chipmunks, who always seem to be playing a game of daredevil with me and other bicyclists; one in the center of the trail didn’t move until the very last moment, then darted to the side where I was trying to avoid it—I missed hitting him by a rodent’s hair. I also rolled past a rather smug-looking wood turtle (between Ramsey and Waterville), who probably had just proudly laid its eggs under the rail trail gravel near the path’s edge somewhere. And I passed a 3-to-5-foot-long, gorgeous, glistening black rat snake just north of mile-marker 162 before Camp Kline.
In short, just another glorious day on the rail trail!
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