Day 1.072: Watch out below

It's amazing what you can find that has fallen out of the trees on a walk. We were at Five Rivers today (unrelated to Albaniana's visit - although we did suspect we'd seen their car in the parking lot). The girls were quite taken with these cones. Exile #3's is from a hemlock - but never fear European readers and classical scholars, as with so many things - hemlock is not the same here as it is elsewhere.

More disturbingly, at another point on the path we encountered this.

If you look carefully - you can see that this tree is resting on the trail (for now at least). The first 30 feet or so of it are still standing in its original location about 20 feet away.
I have no idea what could have caused such a catastrophe, but I'm glad that it had happened before our arrival.