9 Oct 03: Mount Cardigan, Woodland Trail and south ridge
Click on the thumbnails to see the full size picture.
This hike was mostly about leaf-peeping and exploring some of the less
crowded and wilder areas of Cardigan. I've also been more interested
in mushrooms and fungi than usual, partly because there are lots more
of them around than usual, as a result of the wettest year in recent
memory.
This was a bird day: I counted five grouse, one pheasant, and one huge
majestic turkey who stared me down eyeball to eyeball, as if I was
something good to eat. The grouse are perfectly camoflaged, and I'd
walk right by them if they stayed still and quiet -- but they have a
tendency to explode like a bomb right in front of you, as if you'd
stepped on a land mine, and they rocket away with a bass thudding and
thrumming of wings. Really gives the adrenal glands a good workout.
A couple of garter snakes, and a pudgy little gray vole, but no other
four-leggeds except the ubiquitous chipmunks and squirrels.
07:30 leave Boston
10:00 on the trail, ascend Woodland Trail
Cute little pond at the Cardigan lodge.
This is the logging camp, which looked like a devastated moonscape
last time I hiked this trail several years ago, right after the
clear-cutting in this area. Now it's getting overgrown and
starting to look like a nice camping area again.
West shore of the beaver pond. You can see the lodge (in the
middle of the pond) and the food stockpile (dome of sticks
close to the shore). Even in autumn, traditionally the driest
time of the year, it's pretty soggy underfoot all through here,
and though I was being careful, I got one foot soaked!
The trail cuts around the north end of the beaver pond,
where there are lots of mushrooms and mossy mossy rocks.
From the east shore of the beaver pond, beautiful lighting effects.
Border marker of the state owned land, for no particular reason.
Meet the Skyland Trail at Mount Church, and start to see
some views.
Still life with moss and marble inclusion. Arty, huh?
14:00 On the shoulder of Mount Gilman, views back towards
Mount Church and the area I've just hiked through.
In the center of the first picture, you can see the beaver pond and
the creek that supplies it. In the second picture, the beaver pond is
way on the left, and Mount Church is on the right.
There are several slabs and shoulders along the ridge leading up
to Mount Gilman, all affording fine views of the area.
A little panorama from the summit of Gilman, sweeping from the
ridge and Cardigan summit to the north, around to the valley bowl
and AMC lodge to the southeast.
Another marble inclusion in the igneous granite.
16:15 back at the lodge parking lot
19:30 back home in Boston
The final delight of the day was watching the full moon rising over
the eastern horizon during my drive home, big and round and orange and
fat as any pumpkin.
This page maintained by
Wil Howitt
Last updated 9 October 2003
