Back in mid-August my girlfriend and I spent an afternoon in Newaygo, walking along the Muskegon river just downstream from the Hardy Dam. The local Boy Scouts worked with Consumer’s Power to mark out an interpretive path called the Hardy Dam Rustic Nature Trail.

The trail is short – not quite three miles, round-trip – and is reasonably well marked. When we went the ground was wet from several inches of rain over the previous couple of weeks, so we got a little muddy. Still – a beautiful walk in the woods.

One of the highlights was the discovery of at least a dozen red-backed salamanders. There seemed to be at least one under ever fallen limb. Since they are an indicator species, I take that to mean that the ecology of the Muskegon River is quite healthy.

Click on any of the photos to see the rest of the set on Flickr, or click here to start at the beginning.