[Journal for Fieldtrip 13B of the QMIII Project, Northern Maine, June 6-29, 2013] During this trip, LDEO Summer Intern Philip Boody and I (Bill Menke) downloaded the Hay Lake and Moose Point Camp seismometers and inspected a site on Togue Pond.

June 6, 2013. Philip and I left Lamont at 8:45 AM and drove north in my Ford Escape. The day was overcast, with occasional drizzle. We stopped at the Sturbridge MA rest area on the MassPike for lunch. In the mid afternoon, as we were passed milepost 140 along Interstate 95 in Maine, we passed a Bald Eagle sitting on its nest, atop a electric transmission tower on the east side of the highway. We stopped in Orono ME briefly in order to drop off equipment at Kelly Storage, where I am renting space.

We arrived at the Shin Pond Village campground in Mt Chase ME at around 7PM. I chatted with Terry Hill, the proprietor, who I had met last summer. She noted that the spring had been cold and wet and that business was slow; indeed, Philip and I were the only tent campers to have so far arrived for that night. Today was overcast, but rain had so far held off. We set up camp at site T9, the same as Vadim and I had used last summer. We cooked a dinner of barbeque ribs, couscous and tomatoes, set up our tents and settled in for the night. I took a brief walk along the highway just before bed.

June 7, 2013. The morning was overcast and chilly. I set up a Coleman stove and cooked blueberry pancakes for breakfast. While we were cleaning up, we noticed a Red-naped Sapsucker (woodpecker) pecking at first one, and then another, metal sign near camp. It had apparently chosen these targets to intentionally make a racket; we supposed that it did so to attract a mate.

We then headed over to our seismic station on Hay Lake. We sighted a male moose, with short velvet antlers, as we drove up Route 11. The seismic station was undisturbed and the battery was fully charged, but the data logger had stopped recording in November, 2012. We had recorded only about half the data we had hoped. We managed to restart it, but without understanding the underlying problem. We walked over to the lake while the data were being copied to the computer. The view was nice, but the water was not very inviting on this cold overcast and occasionally drizzly morning.

We then drove to Moose Point Camps. Unfortunately, our seismic station there had experienced the same problem as the other, inexplicably shutting down in November 2012. We were able to restart it, but will need to discuss the problem with the manufacturer. Disappointing! After downloading the data, we drove down to the Camp, proper, and chatted with its proprietor, Mr. John Martin, whom I had met last year. He was planting flowers in flower boxes that would be hung on the cabins. He showed us his new chickens, in a coop behind the garden, which he said were now producing a daily batch of eggs. He also described the winter ice harvest, which refilled the Camp’s Ice House completed in a few hours by a twenty-five person team. We also said hello to Moose, his dog. We checked the seismometer before we left. The status light was still blinking green.

Our next destination was Togue Pond, to the north, but we first drove east out of the North Woods to find cell phone service. Finding the party we were trying to reach unavailable, we drove right back in and took a series of woods roads about thirty miles north to T2 R9 WELS, a large parcel of State conservation land that includes Togue Pond. We stopped at the cabin maintained by the Maine Department of Conservation, in order to assess the viability of operating a seismometer there. The cabin is a picturesque log cabin affair, with a deck and grille. We poked around the site, walking a short trail down to the lake level. It is a bit shadier than we had hoped, but will probably work as a seismometer site. We then looked for a camping spot. We first examined the Perch Pond Dam site. The view of Perch Pond is very nice, especially from the dam, but the site was rather too gravely for out tastes. We settled upon the Crater Outlet site, near where a stream from the “Crater”, a boggy depression to the north, flows into Togue pond. This site has two camp sites; we chose the higher one.

We cooked dinner of steak, onions and couscous and then set up our tents. Philip went for a walk while I took my camera and tripod down to the Crater Outlet Stream and took some photos of this little wetland. Some black flies were about, but fewer than I had feared.

June 8, 2013. Heavy rain fell during the night, and though it had tapered off by morning, the morning was still rather drizzly. I cooked a breakfast of cheese omelets. Philip and I took a hike so as to better familiarize ourselves with the lay of the land. We walked west and then north along the road, sighting a small hawk as it crossed the road. The trees here are very thick, though not especially tall, and little can be seen to the sides of the road. After an hour, we reached a small quarry – the sort used for local trap - in about an hour. The rock was slate, with massive quartz veins. The latter seemed to have experienced late stage dissolution, for they looked rather corroded. We searched for quartz crystals but found only a few small ones. On the way back, we took a rather muddy woods road down to the Togue Pond outlet stream. The road fords the stream, but I would have needed an Icelandic-style off-road vehicle to have negotiated it. We then headed back to the car.

We had a rude surprise when we tried to drive off. We had somehow managed to deplete the car battery to the point where the engine would not turn over. We knew the situation was not completely dire, for a few hearty anglers were out on the lake who could potentially be called upon for help; still, the situation was unsettling. Then I remembered that I had brought a snowmobile battery with us and this proved sufficient to start the car. As we headed back, we stopped at the east end of Togue Pond, where a campground, somewhat larger than the others we had examined, is located.

We stopped at Hay Lake to verify the seismometer there was working (which it was). The rain had stopped, but the air was full of voracious mosquitoes. We then drove to Seahaven Cottage in the coastal town of Harpswell ME, stopping at the Hannaford’s Supermarket in Brunswick ME for supplies. We had a dinner of poached cod, spaghetti and sauce, and asparagus. We lit up the wood stove and sat around relaxing for the rest of the evening.

June 9, 2013. We ate blueberry pancakes again for breakfast. Philip and I then walked down to Graveyard Head and to Potts Point. In contrast to the last few days, the weather is clear; the bright sun is very welcome. The many lilac bushes along the road are now blooming but past their peak. They were only budded when Dallas and I were here two weeks ago for Memorial Day. I pointed out the Central Atlantic Magmatic Provence (CAMP) dike that is exposed on the beach; this period of volcanism was discussed during last week’s Intern Workshop and Fieldtrip, which Philip had attended.

We packed up as soon as we returned to Seahaven cottage, and headed back to New York. I first dropped Philip off at his apartment in Manhattan, arriving back home in Tappan NY at about 7PM.

Four days and three nights.