Into the Forest : Day 2

Saturday night was a bit of a disappointment...It started raining in the afternoon an d kept at it half through the night...I went to bed restless...
The following morning, however, was bound to make up for my troubled sleep. There was a crystal clear sky, and the sun was barely over the mountain when i started my way up the second path, towards the ridge line....I woke up around 08:00 and started hiking at 08:15. The air was cool, but not sharp, and my main worry was if i would find much water in the brooks i intended to use as a path...The whole thing took me another 5 hours(including the return leg) and the distance covered was relatively small (about 14km). But before you judge me too hard, wait until you see where i was and what i found, and you'll know it was worth the effort...So without delay, some photos from the second day out...A completely different world alltogether, only one ravine away from day one...

What a find! And on the first few steps on the path...That is a fungus allright...A weird mushroom that depends on you stepping on it to spread its spores.

Lichen! Lichen everywhere!!!Though...pretty...

The good ol' spagnum moss(or Sphagnum moss)...That's my Opinel knife, No10...Did i say how much i love Opinel knives?No? Are you sure?Well...I juss love 'em!

 --A small note regarding the sphagnum moss. you can find about the almost magical, but mostly historical and practical uses of this "magic moss" in This Site... .It's a moss supplier company from New Zealand. Great info and never again look down on the green stuff you tread out there!--

On a dried brook...thankfully the rain was not enough to flood it...

On to the path leading up the mountain...

Foliage shot...Mostly beech on this side of the mountain....

Some white fungus growing on a dead stick...The mushroom formed some kind of layers...

 --Another note...Regarding Fungi and Mushrooms: I am just obsessed with mushrooms...Although i eat only the stuff i buy at the super market, I get crazy about taking pictures of them. I think they are absolutely alien and magical and beautifull... That said... most photos and specimen if i can collect any are for a friend of mine who studies them, identifies them, catalogues them and cross references to national databases for new type and species. So I get my kicks from shooting them, and he gets his samples! A Warning though...Coming across mushrooms that seem familiar and/or tasty has nothing to do with the danger they pose to your health and life...My advice is NEVER, EVER eat ANY wild mushroom...It may very well be the last thing you ever do...Even if your life depends on it, avoid eating wild mushroom.....Let's go on, now, shall we?--

A solitary path....

That thing was tiny!!!It held onto a small stick and i nearly squashed him...

Picked him up and gave him some publicity....

Some more mushroom please?(fungi is more correct...just stating it for the hardcore fans...)

Remember what i said about good boots? Like these...toasty foot and dry toes..Oh yeah!!

The brook that acts as a trail towards the top

In some shots as you have noticed I just couldn't get it right without using flash...I've got a Nikon CoolPix series with many capabilities but its a small automatic...

Three of a kind!!

 **At this point there is a point i want to make. These pictures for many may seem uninteresting or even boring. I urge you to see them at full zoom (sorry i couldn't upload them full size, they took up 2,5 Mb each...) and look at the textures that the forest and forest floor has to offer... That kind of intimacy with the enviroment is so hard to find these days...So please, share with me these beautiful moments and feel the wetness of the leaves, and the dampness of the moss and trees and imagine brushing aside a tuft of branches only to find an outcrop of rock covered in wonderful plants and fungus and other living things....Okay, emotional outburst is finished, i think i can go on now...(*sniff,sob*) **

The path to the top becomes more majestic by the minute!

Only when i reached a peak did i feel the warming rays of the sun on my face. So to celebrate i focused my attention to a puff of orange at the base of a tree trunk...(i took other pictures of me as well to remember being there but i am not award winning handsome, only very handsome so I feel embarassed to post them...)

Back down on the trail heading north i stumbled upon these and stood dumbfounded...This is a weird fungus clearly and I regarded it with the enthusiasm of a treasure finder! (Hey the little Nikon can take pretty good pictures even in these poor conditions..)

A little friend decided to take a walk on my leather gloves....

This is just magnificent...But strangely deeply disturbing...

I put my hand in there so there can be a measure of proportion....

These smelled good, but I wouldn't eat them even if you paid me a million bucks....

A fork up ahead...The path here doubles back on itself and leads you back here...Ready to get back down..(I noted the paths leading away and further up but i would be late and i wanted to manage one last stop on the way down)

Wow! I cant believe it! Another Fungus! Its so amaz....yeah-get-on-with-it!!!!

The path that leads up from the last checkpoint i made.

A picture of those berry plants...If you watch closely on the full size the flowers (right below my thumb) and the berries themselves grow on the leaf and not on the branch or the base od the leaf..(as in the top right corner) These plants were the only ones that pricked my pants on the way up(they have needle thin thorns on the point of the leaf). Even other really thorny bushes didn't manage to pierce through the fabric...

Be sure to check Into the Forest : Day One and/or comment if you like...
---Hurray! Managed to fuse the two posts together so everything's fine enjoy---


Now, as I describe in the post above on the way down i planned to make another stop and have some mint tea outside a closed hunters cabin. As you see from the pictures everything was either wet, or damp or soggy or moist at least...so i had to use my trusty ESBIT stove and a steel 550ml small pot I purchased for 1$ at an open market...(yeah 1$, thin steel perfect for gas cookers)

So after a warm tea, the road towards the village was quite uneventfull, except for this....

I was rewarded with this fella on the way down just before a sheepfold , outside the village...Just magnificent...

I was also rewarded with this when i came into the village and arrived at the house...mmm Pork Chops and Country Sausages!!!

So the exploration journey is over for this weekend and I am planning the next one...So if you like anything or have any questions feel free to comment and/or Follow...