Grand Entry on the Ledges Trail
Stone Row Remnants Welcome Hikers in Vermont's Niquette Bay State Park
Temperatures in Vermont were flirting with an unseasonal 70 degrees on the Vernal Equinox yesterday. Taking advantage of the warm day, I headed back to a place I haven’t visited in about three-and-a-half years, and which I haven’t documented in about four, Niquette Bay State Park in Colchester, Vermont.
The illustration of this feature is from after those 2021 visits and was necessary, back then. My camera now has a wide-angle, almost fish-eye lens which allows me to take wider shots, but four years back, I couldn't fit them in the same frame.
Niquette Bay is on Lake Champlain, on Mallets Bay, on the shoreline roughly in between Lone Rock Point in Burlington to the South and Eagle Mountain in Milton to the North.
Walking in towards the park’s Ledges Trail, we’re greeted by the remnants of a stone row climbing down along a low ridge to the right which disappears momentarily after the ridge.
A little bonus video — raw field footage for Substack readers!
A Curiously-Shaped Boulder sits next to the Right Side Stone Feature. It sits up off the ground a bit, as if pedestaled. Was it once considered an effigy form? It may represent different animal forms from different angles and perspectives. Suggestions have included Frogs, Fish, Birds and Turtles.
More bonus video for Substack readers — a couple of different sides of the boulder:
The Hiking Trail crosses the path of the degraded Stone Row after it comes off of the Right Side Feature. The Stone Row picks up again on the Left Side of the Trail.
The stone row then briefly rises back up in a fit of complexity, but quickly ends in a snake-head-like boulder.
A little video might give you a better look at the feature. Once again, some Substack-exclusive raw field footage:
Though square-ish enough to give an initial impression of European-Descendant produced stonework, a closer look reveals this may be square-ish, but it’s not actually traditional coursework. Instead, it mimics the way much of the natural stone fractures in blocky forms here at Niquette Bay. Have a closer look:
And — for reference’s sake — here’s a look at some of the (supposedly) naturally fracturing stone up on the ledges nearby.
Although, based on other stonework I’ve seen around these ridges, I’m not entirely sure we’re not seeing some human alterations here…
Some very curious stonework down on the ridges next to Lake Champlain…
I still find it a bit stunning that there are historians and naturalists who erroneously state, "There are no stone walls in the Champlain Valley." But, maybe they're correct... these strike me as possible Indigenous Stone Rows, so maybe they aren't any stone "walls" after all.
Though that last piece of blocky bonus footage was taken up near the top of the ridge, the rest of this is all just at the entry to the Ledge Trails. As you might imagine, there is much more to share ahead from this Equinox trip to Niquette Bay State Park.