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Archive for the ‘Hikes’ Category

Maiden Cliff Loop

Friday, November 26th, 2010

Before I reached Acadia, I tackled a coastal “summit” in Camden Hills State Park–a trail with a vertical rise of 700′. It turned out to be one of my most difficult hikes in Maine–mostly because it was my first and I hadn’t yet adapted to Maine’s route finding clues. It was also the trail with the steepest gradient, but that just meant a lot of rocks and tree roots on a very overused, under-maintained trail.

The cairns don't necessary lead any where

The cairns on the granite ledges didn't necessary lead anywhere; it must have taken me 10 minutes to figure out how to proceed from this granite outcropping

The views from the top of Maiden Cliff of Lake Megunticook were beautiful, but the leaves had not yet changed very much.

Lake Megunticook from the top of Maiden Cliff

A wooden cross marked the spot where an eleven-year-old girl fell to her death in 1864.

The Maiden's Cross

Not all of the peaks in the park must be reached via your feet; there’s a paved road to the top of Mt. Battie from which it’s possible to see the outline of Mount Desert Island and Camden Harbor.

Camden Harbor from atop Mt. Battie

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The Fungi of Maine

Thursday, November 25th, 2010

I know nothing about mushrooms, but in the fall it’s hard to travel a forest trail without spotting one. So here’s a gallery of fungi from the trails of Maine.

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West Quoddy Head State Park

Wednesday, November 24th, 2010

The obvious reason to visit this park is the West Quoddy Head Light, which is east of East Quoddy Head Light located on Campobello Island.

West Quoddy Head Light

Sticking out into the Bay of Fundy, West Quoddy Head is the easternmost point of land in the United States. Just off shore is Grand Manan Island, a part of New Brunswick. We hiked a loop that began with coastal views and ended with a boardwalk into a bog.

West Quoddy Head trail map

West Quoddy Head Light from the coastal trail

Sea clifs

Coastal view

Apachetas!

If you’re not familiar with the term apacheta, check out my previous blog post on apachetas in the Andes.

As we headed inland, we encountered stairs of tree roots.

Steve on the tree root staircase

In October one doesn’t expect to find many wildflowers blooming except for an aster or two, so this renegade was a rarity.

An October bloom

Along the circular boardwalk around the bog there were numerous pitcher plants, lichens, mosses, dwarf trees, and berry bushes.

A carnivorous pitcher plant

In the bog

Moss?

More moss?

Reindeer lichen

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Campobello Island, New Brunswick

Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010

One day we went off with our passports in hand to cross the border into Canada and hike in the steps of FDR. The trail to Liberty Point was a short 3.2km one-way, but it was filled with views.

On the way to Liberty Point

Sunsweep Sculpture from afar

Sugar Loaf Rock

Campobello's cliffs

A buoy washed ashore

A mini-isle

Pebble beach

A carpet of moss in the forest

A seaside still life

While on this hike we saw at least six bald eagles soaring overhead at one cliffside view point, and several seals.

Seal

After returning via a forest path, we visited the 34-room cottage where Eleanor and Franklin came with their young family to spend the summer hiking and sailing. Franklin had spent most summers while growing up on the island at the cottage his parents built when he was just a toddler. Their neighbor included a provision in her will that offered her cottage to Franklin’s mother at a bargain price of $5,000. Eleanor and Franklin with their growing young family used the cottage every year from 1909 to 1921 when FDR came down with polio after arriving on the island. He only returned three times after that.

The Roosevelt cottage facing the sea

Franklin added a new wing in 1915 to accommodate his growing family.

The front entrance

Exterior detail

While the home may have been large, it was decorated for a simple lifestyle that focused on outdoor activities, not lavish indoor entertainments.

Living room

Guest room

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A Trio of Bold Coast Hikes

Monday, November 22nd, 2010

Boot Head and Hamilton Cove are in units of the Maine Coast Heritage Trust. The trail at Boot Head starts with a trip through a bog,

Crossing a bog at Boot Head

proceeds to a stony beach on the shore of Boot Cove

Boot Cove

The beach on Boot Cove

where I spied the closest thing to a hoodoo on my entire trip to Maine,

Seastacks, a seaside cousin to a hoodoo

and then climbed the cliffs to circle Boot Head.

The cliffs of Boot Head

You can look straight down if you want

A windswept tree

The trail to nearby Hamilton Cove provided equally splendid views

Hamilton Cove

Hamilton Cove with Great Manan Island in background

and an opportunity for a group photo.

Road Scholars at Hamilton Cove

Our hike in Shackford Head State Park differed from the others, as this headland is in Cobscook Bay close to Eastport rather than on the Gulf of Maine near Lubec.

Cobscook Bay from Shackford Head

Another cliffside view from Shackford Head

Our guides Tess and Steve with a kelp

In this sheltered bay one can see fish farms where Atlantic salmon destined for our dining pleasure are raised. On another day, when we kayaked by the farm, we could actually see the fish jumping.

Fish Farm near Eastport

A closer view

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Conserving Maine’s Coast

Saturday, November 20th, 2010

I was amazed at the number of land trusts in DownEast Maine, many of which had hiking trails.

Near Camden I hiked in the Fernald’s Neck Preserve which is part of the Coastal Mountains Land Trust. The original section of land was purchased by the Maine Chapter of The Nature Conservancy to stop a housing development from destroying the forest in 1969. A gift from a Fernald descendant expanded the preserve.

Fernalds Neck is in Megunticook Lake, so the water views were quite different from the many seashore trails I took.

Lake Megunticook from Balance Rock

But, as on Mount Desert Island, there’s lots of granite to grab your eye and erratics to confound your sense of gravity.

Balance Rock

At Birdsacre or Stanwood Wildlife Sanctuary near Ellsworth I walked out to Dorgan McFarland Knoll and a kettle crater in search of a geocache. This sanctuary is dedicated to preserving the home and vision of ornithologist-photographer Cordelia Stanwood.

A hidden ammo box cache at Birdsacre

South of Jonesport, about halfway between Bar Harbor and the northeast tip of Maine, is Great Wass Island. This 1540-acre tract was acquired by the Maine Chapter of the Nature Conservancy in 1978. To complete the loop trail, one needs more time than I had, so I just did a round-trip on the Little Cape Point Trail. The island extends out into the ocean farther than any other landmass in eastern Maine, giving it a humid climate conducive to several rare plants. The trail passes through forests and over bogs to reach the sea.

Little Cape Point

More exposed granite

Looking south across Cape Cove

Further north I hiked the Coastal Trail in the Cutler Unit of the Maine Coastal Heritage Trust. I would hike in other units along the Bold Coast with my Road Scholar group based in Eastport. The following photo gives you a good idea what forest trails are like on the coast of Maine.

Over the stream and through the woods

A cliffside viewpoint

Although technically not a land trust, I’m including my hike in the Petit Manan National Wildlife Refuge in this post. While a significant portion of this refuge is located on offshore islands, there’s a small section on Pigeon Hill Bay with a short 1.2-mile trail to the sea.

Boardwalk trail over the bog

Trail over the rocks

More pink granite

Pigeon Hill Bay

Another diabase dike

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Acadia National Park’s Carriage Roads

Wednesday, November 17th, 2010

Hiking on carriage roads is like hiking on rails-to-trails, a little goes a long way unless you realize you have an opportunity not usually available when hiking. You don’t have to stare at your feet; you can enjoy the world around you and concentrate on finding the next perfect scene.

Thanks to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Acadia NP has 45 miles of pathways designed for motor-free travel in some of the most scenic valleys of the park. Whether on a bike or your feet, you won’t have to huff and puff up any steep grades, although some are more than the 2-3% of railroad grades. In the summer, one can actually travel the roads in a horse-drawn carriage. In the winter, cross-country skiers and snowmobilers use the roads.

Your carriage awaits!

The paths are roads in the sense they are 16 feet wide with a 6-8 inch crown and wide culverts that insure good drainage.

On the Carriage Road around Witch Hole Pond

Carriage Road along Eagle Lake

The roadsides were carefully landscaped and groomed, and many coping stones were placed as guardrails or to define the roadway.

Coping Stones

One of the delights of traveling the carriage roads is finding the next hand-built stone-covered bridge.

Three-arched Duck Brook Bridge

The Duck Brook Bridge’s central arch is 30 feet wide, while the two flanking arches are 20 feet. Corbelled, semi-circular balconies provide viewing platforms

Duck Brook Bridge Viewing Platform

for taking in the scene along Duck Brook.

Duck Brook, scene 1

Duck Brook, scene 2

The triple-arched Stanley Brook Bridge carries a carriage road over Stanley Brook, the road connecting Jordan Pond to Seal Harbor, and the Seaside Trail. Note how this less symetrical, more rustic-looking bridge differs from the one over Duck Brook.

Stanley Brook Bridge

A multi-million dollar restoration of the carriage roads and their bridges began in the 1990s as an experiment in public-private partnerships for the National Park Service. Maintenance of the roads is a continual battle against nature, but the Friends of Acadia contribute thousands of hours of manual labor to clear debris and keep the culverts running. After widening the Eagle Lake Bridge to accommodate a busy cross-island road, work continues on restoring its stone facing.

Eagle Lake Bridge

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Geocaching on Mount Desert Island

Monday, November 15th, 2010

There are no hidden caches in national parks, but one can still search for treasures. There are long-established virtual caches and earthcaches that will lead the seeker to unique locations within the parks. At Acadia the park rangers themselves have created a series of earthcaches that eventually leads to getting a special stamp, which I had placed in my National Parks Passport. For an article on this special cache and more background on geocaching, see Natural Resource Year in Review–2006.

The search for the Story of Glaciers and how they created the land that is now Acadia National Park begins along Somes Sound, a fjard or glacially-carved embayment that is drowned by the sea. It is not technically a fjord, which is how most of the guides and tourist literature refer to it.

Somes Sound--Earthcache #1

There are four other stops on the trail to finding the secret answer that will earn the cacher the special stamp. In order to avoid giving away the final question and answer, I won’t describe all of the stops.

Two of the stops require some hiking. The hike to the top of a Bubble is the most challenging, but it is only about 1/2-mile to the top or one mile round trip. The park classifies the trail as moderate, probably for elevation change. The elevation of the Bubble is somewhere between that of Gorham Mountain (525′) and Beech Mountain (839′) (which I described in an earlier post), but the trail is much shorter than either. I would highly recommend good foot wear, although I saw teens in flip-flops and Europeans in leather-soled dress shoes.

View from Atop South Bubble Mt

The top of the Bubble is a great place to see how a glacier scoured the Cadillac Mountain Granite of the mountain and left behind as it receded pieces of Lucerne Granite that was formed 30 miles northwest of Mount Desert Island.

Exposed Cadillac Mountain Granite Atop South Bubble

A waymark for the erratic has been registered, along with a brief trail description and some spectacular photos, at waymarking.com.

Glacial Erratic of Lucerne Granite

There are several non-park sponsored earthcaches on Mount Desert Island, but I only went in search of one–Ellsworth Schist. Needless to say, this cache is about another kind of rock–the oldest on Mount Desert Island.

Ellsworth Schist--a layered metamorphic rock

Quartz layers

Located on the west side of the island not far from the Seal Cove Auto Museum, there’s more to see than just rock.

Seal Cove at low tide

At anchor in Seal Cove

There are also five virtual caches within the park boundaries that will take you to Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse, Otter Point, Great Head, the top of Cadillac Mountain, and Jordan Pond–all of which I’ve covered in earlier posts.

Outside the park’s boundaries there are numerous traditional caches. I looked for four along my paths of travel. All were relatively easy finds. One involved hiking the unmaintained Seaside Trail from Jordan Pond house–a perfect excuse for indulging in popovers afterwards.

Popovers at Jordan Pond House

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The Lakes and Ponds of Acadia

Sunday, November 14th, 2010

There’s more to Acadia National Park than seeking lofty heights for views of the sea or climbing over rocks to witness the power of the sea. There are numerous ponds and lakes with still waters that make for spectacular photos featuring reflections–especially when the leaves are in their autumn glory.