Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Celebrating the Spring Equinox & Lake Update

Today marks the official first day of spring! Although, it has felt like spring for some time now here in the New River Valley. The wood frogs and spring peepers have been calling for several weeks already, and the birds are singing loudly across the property. If you didn't catch it on Facebook last month, check out this video of the wood frogs calling from the wetland on a foggy morning!



Along with unseasonably warm temperatures, we've seen plenty of rain on the Mountain recently. The water level in the lake is slowly and steadily rising, very similar to spring trends of previous years. The water is not far from the floating "T" dock, and we hope to see a continuing rise to get that dock floating in the next few months!

Current lake level, photo taken March 19, 2012
The water is approximately 15 fee from the floating dock

The arrow in this picture points to the ring of grasses that delineate the water's peak level last year


We have several volunteer groups, including students from Virginia Tech, up to hike and clear the trails throughout the next few weeks. One pro to the lack of snow this winter is that our trails didn't get nearly as wrecked as they usually do! The weather is fine all week long, and it's a great time to be out walking the forested trails at Mountain Lake!

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