It’s raining at Moosehead Lake

Monday September 2 & Tuesday September 3, 2013
Moosehead Lake Family Campground

 

 

Monday

It starts raining on Sunday about 30 minutes after we get the water and electric hooked up.  We don’t set anything else up.  It just keeps raining.  All night.   It’s raining when we wake up.  SO….time for a scrambled breakfast while we watch it rain.

 

 

 

Looks delicious doesn’t it?   It’s a tofu scramble with mushrooms, onions, spinach, oregano, garlic paprika and tumeric.  Home fried potatoes done in a cast iron skillet sprayed with olive oil.   It was delicious!!

 

 

 

It keeps raining.  What to do now?  I’m working on the blog.  David is looking at the literature provided by the campground.  Because it is Labor Day, the historic society isn’t open or we’d probably go there but instead we grab our rain coats head up to the area visitor center.

 

 

They have tons of information but only a little about the things of interest to us….hiking, kayaking, biking.   Mostly it’s where to stay, tours to take, restaurants to eat in.

 

 

 

But we do find a few things and bring them home where since it is STILL raining, I make a cup of hot chocolate and look through them.

 

 

David naps.  All this rain has worn him out.  This is the ‘I’m reading something on my computer’ version of the nap.

 

 

 

It’s STILL raining in the afternoon so David decides more cooking is in order and uses some of our wonderful THREE POUNDS of blueberries to make another pie.

I’m thinking I like this raining stuff.

 

 

 

 

After a slice of pie, another nap is in order.  This one is under the guise of reading hiking information.  Isn’t it amazing how he can sleep and be holding the brochure and never drop it?   He’s a pro!!   He always says it’s those years of practice during sermons in church.

 

 

It just keeps raining and they say more tomorrow. 

 

 

Tuesday

 

Yesterday the forecast was for rain all day today but when we wake up they have changed it to no rain until 3:00 this afternoon.  So we get our hiking clothes on and pack some lunches and set out for a trail we read about yesterday.

 

It’s called Burnt Jacket Mountain.  I hope to find someone who can tell me how it got that name.   We drive about 6 miles out of Greenville and turn down Burnt Jacket Road for another 4 miles.  The road is gravel and not terribly bad.  We then turn off onto another smaller much more 4WD type road.  Not Ruby’s usual thing, but she manages. 

 

There’s a professional trail sign which has nothing but the name and under it a hand made sign.  It says .6 miles to the summit.  The other information we have read says 1 mile.  No matter, either is ok with us.

 

 

 

 

 

This is clearly a different sort of forest from what we have seen near the coast.  I’ve never seen this plant before and it is all over the ground.  In addition, the forest is full of white oak and hemlock.  White Oak is my favorite tree and hemlock is David’s.

 

 

This fella hops across the path in front of me and at first I think he has eyes on the back of his head.  If I were a bird or an animal, I’d think this was a mighty scary dude.

 

 

 

The trail goes through some rather young and scraggly woods probably only 10 years old at the most.  The trail is rough and steep but we make it to the top without too much ado.  I would recommend hiking poles for this one.

At the top David says ‘now this is my kind of geo cache’ as he finds a jar very loosely “hidden” in the cairn at the top.

 

 

There are 4 “log books” inside the jar, dating from 2002, with all sorts of comments including how great the view was.

 

 

At this point there is almost no view.  The information we read which caused us to choose this hike described it as “spectacular views of Moosehead Lake and surrounding mountains”.  Clearly they haven’t updated their hiking information in at least 5 years and maybe more.

 

Pretty disappointing especially since the trail wasn’t all that nice either.

 

The trail seems to go through the summit and down the other side.  We check it out and  on a tree there is another one of the handmade signs which says “Green Trail, the most scenic trail”. 

 

Since our trip up has not been what you’d call scenic and the summit was a disappointment given our expectations, I want to hike this scenic route.  David suggests that we hike a half hour down the green trail to see.  We’ll then turn around, come back up and hike back the red trail we came up on back to Ruby.

 

Right away we concur that this trail up the mountain or down is much more beautiful.  The woods are older and more mature.

 

 

 

We also notice the scoring in the rocks.  They look almost like fossils of wave action on sand.  They are gorgeous and on nearly ever rock over a fairly long section of the trail.   They are much more striking than the pictures.   The rocks are very deeply scored and when I run my hand over them to feel the “sand” my fingers are surprised.

 

 

 

 

 

The views at one point going down the trail are much better than those at the summit.

 

 

 

I haven’t seen white oak acorns in a LONG time.  I just love them.  Hope they all grow up to be mighty oaks.

 

 

After a half hour, David stops and says it’s time to turn back.  He figures out just how long it will take us to climb back up and then back down to the car.

But I have believed since I started down that I’m going to be able to find my way back to the car without climbing back up.  Don’t ask me how, just somehow.  We saw one of the homemade signs saying there was a red trail to Allagash Parking when we were walking along Burnt Jacket Road to our original trail head.  The green trail sign we are following also says it goes to Allagash Parking.   The big problem with my belief is that the red trail went up one side of the mountain and the green trail is going down the other.  No matter.  I’m going all the way to the bottom with my vision.  I’m thinking he can just do what he thinks is best and I’ll go take my vision on down and then he can come find me.  HA!   Well no such luck.  Against his better judgment, he goes down too.

  There are no end of beautiful things to see in the woods.  Many of them lichens or fungus .  I assume these are Bracket fungus – shelf fungus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

             

 

 

 

 

 

I’m not sure what this is.  It’s leather like and is entirely black on the back.   Many varied colors of greens, tans and browns growing on this rock.

 

 

 

  

 

And of course some wonderful toad stools.

 

 

 

The trail ends at a road that looks just like the one by which we are parked but of course it isn't.   We know there is a connector trail between our road and this one because of the sign we saw for it on our road.  Question is which way to go on this road to find the other end of that connector.  Are you confused yet?  

David studies the situation and draws a map and says go to the right.  My intuition based on nothing says go to the left.  He usually has the better sense of direction so we go right.   You know where this is going don't you??  

We follow the road for about a mile and are about to give up and turn around and climb back up over that damn mountain when I see a car go by just ahead on a road perpendicular to the one we are on.  Damn, just missed it…....I hustle down to the T intersection.  No car. 

 

 

We're discussing what to do when I hear another car coming.  I flag him down.  Richie Daniels......a sweetie from Massachusetts.   He says "are you lost".  I say "well no but I don't want to climb the mountain again.  Where's the connector to the Burnt Jacket Mountain Trail parking area".   He says "get in and I'll take you to the trail"   which is TA DA..........back down the way I said it was.  

He drops us off at the connector road where we find this sign.  We walk the .2 mile back to Ruby.  Easy peasy.  THANKS RICHIE!!

 

 

Sure beats climbing back over the mountain and down a not so hot trail.  I call it a successful example of the power of belief.

 

 

 

On the way back, we stop to check out the put in at Prong Pond which we hope to kayak tomorrow.  Didn’t notice the skies at the time.  How could we not you ask?  Who knows???

 

It’s a Great lunch spot.  We take a bunch of self lunch photos and this is the best one.

 

 

 

BUT we have about two bites when the predicted rain just dumps all over us and the picnic is hurriedly moved inside the car. 

 

 

 

Oh well……….guess I should have believed much harder in a lunch without rain!!