Home from Mt. Desert Isle. I don't have pictures of some of the best things, like all the seals we saw kayaking, dozens of seals, on the rocks and in the water, or all the hermit crabs we found in a little tidal gut.
For me hiking in Acadia has two great joys: first the dark green valleys, full of moss and ferns, and then the barren hilltops with spectacular views. It's easy to get photographs of the hilltops, but to do justice to the dim mossy valleys you would have to carry a tripod. Here is an attempt. I love moss, and have always loved it, and I have never seen so lovely as on Mt. Desert.
The Bowl, a pond on the flank of Mt. Champlain.
The bowl from above, Atlantic Ocean in the background.
View of Bar Harbor from the top of Mt. Champlain.
Tidepooling on the rocks at Wonder Land. We saw a few interesting things here, especially crabs, but my sister told us we could do much better at a culvert on the road not far from the end of her driveway. So on the way out of town we stopped there. This culvert connected a tidal pond to an inlet, so the water flows back and forth through it with the tides. (Which are dramatic here in the Gulf of Maine.) When we arrived water was flowing out of the pond down what looked like a shallow stream, and there in just a few inches of water we saw more crabs than we could count, little fish, two pencil-sized eels, and at least a dozen small hermit crabs. It was a bit of a lesson; in a popular National Park the big attractions are sometimes worth braving the crowds, but some of the best things are hidden away in forgotten corners.
Today I ease back into reality, and tomorrow I go back to work.
1 comment:
It's nice to know that we share a common fondness for moss. I think being able to appreciate the subtle beauty of something as seemingly simple and unremarkable as a moss covered stone says something interesting about a person.
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