Blue Hills Felsenmeer State Natural Area - Part 1

I have been meaning to put together a decent post about this but I was hoping to take another hike out there, as well as do some more reading prior to writing up the full report. I will try to squeeze it in this weekend. In part 2 I will include more pictures and details of where it is located, how to find it, and some geological info with links to research projects on the area. For now, here are a few pictures from when I visited the area this spring. Although they've been doctored up quite a bit, I will say that so far I'm impressed with my phone's camera!

It was an 80 degree day on April 1st. We had an interesting spell of warm weather throughout the month of March, nearly reaching record high temps on several days. I hadn't seen snow on the ground elsewhere for over 3 weeks, but the bottom of the valley was a nice and cool temp - some snow still remained in the bottom.

Above is a view from the west end of the valley - I'm sitting on the ridge seen in the photo below. I would guess that the rocks on the south side and center aren't exposed to sun until mid-April or May - possibly later. They were noticeably cooler than the rocks on the north side. Also notice the abundance of lichens growing on the southern rocks - to me this indicates that they probably maintain a fairly constant cool temperature throughout the summer.

Stay tuned for more info in Part 2. Cheers!