[Bill Menke’s Journal for Fieldtrip 13F of the QMIII Project, Bangor area, Downeast and Northern Maine, August 9-24, 2013] During this trip, Columbia University Graduate Student Helen Janiszewski, LDEO Summer Intern Philip Boody and I (Bill Menke) installed seismometers in Washington County and Aroostook County, Maine.

August 9, 2013. I pick Helen up at Lamont at 9AM and we head north in my Ford Escape SUV. We arrive in Bangor Maine at around 6PM, where we meet Philip, who has driven down from New Sweeden in his VW Jetta station wagon. We are staying at the Travelodge, off Exist 182 of Interstate 95. We have dinner at Dysart’s Restaurant in Bangor. I have fried Haddock.

August 10, 2013. The morning is sunny. I take an early walk along Route 2 west of the Interstate. I spot a muskrat by a stream. I then have a continental breakfast at the Trevelodge. We spend the morning buying supplies in Bangor’s main commercial district at Stillwater Avenue, and especially at Lowes. We then have a picnic lunch of salami sandwiches by a pond by Taylor Road in Orono. Many different types of wildflowers, including thistle and goldenrod, are in bloom along the bank. We examine some kind of small silo located beside the pond, along a section of road that might once have been a railway line. We can’t deduce its purpose. The area around the pond has several hiking trails and woods roads. We walk a short way down several, to get a little exercise. We also take a quick look at the Pushaw Lake Campground, in case we ever want to use it. It is a commercial campground reminiscent of one my family regularly vacationed at when I was a child. An antique car, a 1911 Maxwell, is parked by the office. I walk down to the shore of Pushaw Lake, which is large and quite choppy, for the afternoon has turned breezy. After lunch, we purchase deep discharge marine batteries at Sears. We have oriental food for dinner at the Tea Garden restaurant in Bangor.

August 11, 2013. It’s another sunny day. After a quick breakfast at the Travelodge, we all drive to Peaks-Kenny State Park, in order to view the US Geological Survey’s seismic station “PKME”, which is located in the park. We drive up Route 15 through Dover-Foxcroft Maine, getting a fine view of Borestone Mountain, to our north. Peaks-Kenny State Park is located on the southwestern shore of Sebec Lake. The lake is a few miles across, wooded along its shores, with a dramatic view of Borestone Mountain beyond the far shore. We walk a trail that passes the seismic station, which starts at the west end of the swim beach. The station proves to be a much larger and more permanent facility than the temporary stations we are planning to deploy, and is equipped with a satellite dish antenna. We walk the rest of the trail, which is a loop, through woods that contain some remarkably large specimens of Eastern Hemlock and White Birch. The hemlocks do not seem to be infested by the Woolly Adelgid insects, which have so devastated that species of tree in New York. We come across an unusual picnic table along the trail – tall and built into a pile of rocks. It is some sort of art project. After finishing the loop, we have lunch at another artsy picnic table, built into a large granite boulder by the bathhouse.

After lunch, we drive over to Katahdin Ironworks State Park, on Katahdin Ironworks Road, and examine the large iron furnace there. It is a pyramidal stone structure like the many Colonial Ear furnaces in the Hudson Highlands of New York. We then enter the KI Jo-Mary Multiple Use Management Forest, paying a fee at the checkpoint across from the furnace. We drive past Silver Lake, which is beautiful and which provides a great view of the low mountains to the north. We park at the gorge called Gulf Hagas and hike to Screw Auger Falls, a distance of a mile or so. The hike takes a bit longer than we expect, though, for we have to ford the West Branch of the Pleasant River. It is only a foot or so deep, but we wade slowly on account of our bare feet. Several dogs, owned by other hikers, are frolicking in the river and cross it much faster than us. We then follow the Appalachian Trail (AT, blazed in white) northward and connect with a trail (blazed in blue) that descends down into the gorge. We pass numerous beautiful waterfalls, cascades and pools. One relatively low waterfall pours into an especially deep pool; I think that it is Screw Auger. The rock is a vertically-foliated slate. On the way back, we stop to admire the tall White Pine trees of the Hermitage grove. I also make a short detour to view a wetland adjacent to the AT.

We have dinner at the Silver Lake Field Campsite, setting up the Coleman Stove on a picnic table and cooking pork and couscous. The afternoon is sunny though a bit cool. The campsite is in a small field south of the lake, but the lake is not really accessible from it, owing to the dense woods along that part of its shore.

August 12, 2013. The next few days prove rather frustrating. We are expecting a shipment of seismometers to be delivered to Kelly Storage in Orono and have to be available to receive it. Unfortunately, we cannot find out when it will be delivered. I drive over to Kelly Storage in the morning and wait until lunch, while Philip and Helen shop for some hard-to-find supplies. At lunch, I take a short walk in Webster Park, on the bank of the Penobscot River in Orono. It and the Route 2 Highway bridge offer nice view of this major river. After lunch, I return to Kelley Storage, only to receive a call saying that the delivery will definitely not be either today or tomorrow. I then took a more extended walk in the Bangor City Forest, an experimental forest with many pedestrian walkways and less-developed trails. I pass several stands of White Pine, each planted according to a specific schedule. In one of the damper areas, I spot a Leopard frog and, later, a garter snake. After completing a loop through the forest, I walk the Bog Boardwalk through the Orono Bog, which adjoins the forest. It is a large wetland, full of sphagnum moss and pitcher plants, but with stands of short evergreen trees, too. I watch a wasp exploring a pitcher plant. It does not get trapped by this carnivorous plant, but rather flies away after a few minutes.

I meet up with Helen and Philip at the Travelodge. We eat dinner at the Oriental Jade restaurant in Bangor.

August 13, 2013. Since we are not expecting a delivery today, we drive up north to install a seismometer vault at the Six Mile Checkpoint, in the North Maine Woods west of Ashland. We stop at an overlook along I95 near Millinocket Maine to view Salmon Stream Lake and Mt Katahdin. At the checkpoint, I spend a few minutes talking with the attendant, Rita, and with a Forest Service Ranger named Amanda. We then assemble and install the vault in a field near the checkpoint. I spot a few rabbits.

We drive up to Portage and have lunch at a park by the shore of Portage Maine. We then reenter the North Woods and drive out to Moose Point Camp, where we unload some supplies. Our vehicles have limited carrying capacity and we have to stage supplies carefully. We then return to Bangor and have dinner at Miguel’s, a Mexican Restaurant. I have burritos.

August 14, 2013. Rain today. After a quick continental breakfast at the Travellodge, I head out to Kelly Storage to await the delivery. I sight a turkey while I am sitting in the car in the facility’s driveway. Meanwhile, Helen and Philip head over to a plumber in Orono to buy a pipe that we will use for the solar panel mast at Togue Pond. Around lunch time I get a call that the delivery will not happen today. How frustrating! I return to the Travelodge, pickup Helen and Philip and drive over to Camden, a town on the sea. We creep thorough the traffic jam that is a permanent feature of the downtown area of this tourist town. We begin a load of laundry at the Clean Bee Laundromat on Route 1 south of town and take a walk through town while the machine is running. The rain is tapering in off and clear sky is showing to our south and heading our way. After our clothes are done, we wade through the traffic jam again, driving over to Camden Hills State Park, off Route 1 north of town.

We hike up the Mt Megunticook Trail to the Ocean Lookout, which offers a spectacular view of Camden harbor and Penobscott Bay. I have fond memories of Mt Megunticook (elevation 1380 ft), for I climbed it first as a boy in the Nineteen Sixties as part of a family vacation. It was my first substantial hike and maybe my mother’s most substantial ever – indeed, she still occasionally refers to it. I climbed it again about fifteen years ago with my own children, Hannah and Josh and their cousin Nick Estes. The trail ascends steeply, past numerous rock ledges composed of schist and quartzite and covered with prominent glacial scratches, grooves and flutes. The rock at the overlook is a quartzite, shot through with long-bladed andalusite crystals. The glacial scratches point out towards the sea – indeed, the scarp on the seaward part of the ledge appears to be glacially-plucked. The sky has now cleared and the view of the bay and its islands is remarkable. Many sailboats are moored in the harbor. We also have a nice view of a smaller hill, Mt. Battie, below us. We chat with an extended family of a dozen or more people at the overlook. I tell a young and tired boy about my first climb up the hill, when I was his age. We do not hike up to the summit, for it is wooded and without a view, but instead take the Mt. Battie trail back down. It follows the edge of the cliff and passes by the Adams Lookout, which provides another great view of the sea.

We have a spaghetti dinner in the park’s picnic area, a broad field on the east side of Route 1 that also has a nice view of the sea. Several sailing yachts, lit up by the last rays of the evening sun, pass by as we are setting up the Coleman stove. We head back to Bangor soon after dinner, stopping once along Route 1 near Belfast to admire a view of Penobscott Bay. We can see Mt Cadillac, a solitary hill far to the east, across the bay.

August 15, 2013. I have a very frustrating day at Kelley Storage, waiting for a delivery that doesn’t come. I spend all of the day there. I sight a few interesting birds, including an American Goldfinch, as I sit in my car in the facility’s driveway.

About 3PM, a delivery truck arrives, but it is not for us. Surprisingly, however, it contains a load of seismic equipment, huge white plastic seismic vaults for the Transportable Array that is being installed by IRIS. I chat with Larry, a retired USGS employee, who arrives to meet it.

In the evening, Helen, Philip and I have a picnic dinner at Bangor City Forest, cooking a stir fry on the Coleman stove. Afterward, I walk the Bog Boardwalk again. The evening is spectacularly clear and the orange light and low sun angle is lighting up the bog spectacularly. I sight a few red squirrels as I walk back through the forest.

August 16, 2013. I set up again at Kelley Storage and await the delivery. It arrives at around 12:20 PM. Thank goodness! We divide the gear between our cars and the storage unit and then head out to Washington County. Helen and Philip set up our tents at the Log Landing Campsite along Machias River Road near Wesley, while I drive straight to Camp Vick and begin to offload and organize our gear. This is a pretty site, on the west bank of the Machias River. After Helena and Philip arrive, we set up the seismometer, using a vault that Philip and I built on a previous trip. The installation goes well and we finish up at about 6PM.

We have dinner of kielbasa and summer squash at Log Landing. The evening is cool with a partly clear sky with the moon showing.

August 17, 2013. Rain fell during the night but the morning is clear. We eat blueberry pancakes for breakfast, using berries that Philip has picked. We then head over to Howard Cove and install another station at a site on the sea cliff where Philip and I had previously installed a vault. The scenery here is beautiful, with the brown rhyolite rock of the sea cliff, the blue waters of Machias Bay and the greens of the nearby woods and distant islands. We finish up at about 2:20 PM.

We have lunch at Jasper Beach, a beach made entirely of reddish brown rhyolite cobbles. Helen and I try to relax on this rather lumpy material, while Philip goes for a swim. He reports that the water is fairly chilly. After lunch, I go for a brief walk down towards the eastern end of the beach, to view a large pond set behind the berm of cobbles.

We stopped at several interesting Washington County scenic locations on the way back to the Log Landing Campsite, including Patrick Pond (off Route 86), Meddybemps Lake (off of Route 191) and a stream near the intersection of Route 191 and N Union Rd. We had dinner at the Crawford Rest Stop along Route 9, east of Wesley. I took a short hike, following an informal trail north along the bank of Harmon Brook.

August 18, 2013. The night was clear and rather hilly. We have a breakfast of cheese omelets, pack up and head north (but first stopping in Bangor to pick up supplies). We have lunch at an rest area on Interstate 95 near the town of Medway. We check in at the North Maine Woods Six Mile Checkpoint, on Realty Road west of Ashland and then set up camp at the Beaver Sprague Campsite, a few miles further west along the road. We erect our tents in a small grassy field adjacent to a small stream. We then spend the afternoon setting up the solar panel A-frame at the Six Mile Checkpoint site, with the intention of installing the seismometer the next morning.

We have barbeque ribs for dinner.

August 19, 2013. After a pancake breakfast, we drive over to Six Mile Checkpoint and complete the installation of the seismometer. We then visit the Department of Environmental Conservation office in Ashland and meet with Vern Labbe, who gives us helpful advice. I then drive over to the Lowes in the town of Presque Isle and buy cement while Helen and Philip climb Haystack Mountain, a small but steep hill east of Ashland. I meet Helen and Philip in Portage and we drive together to Moose Point Camps, where we drop off the supplies. We then return to Beaver Sprague Campsite and cook a dinner of pork and macaroni and cheese.

August 20, 2013. The morning at Beaver Sprague Campsite is drizzly. We have a breakfast of cheese omlets, pack up and head over to Moose Point Camps. The seismometer there, a Taurus data logger with a Trillium geophone, is working but we swap it out for a Reftek data logger and Guralp geophone, in order to be able to bring the Taurus back to the lab. We need to figure out why it shut down during the winter of 2012. The Guralp is a much taller geophone than the Trillium, so we add a third layer of cement blocks to the vault to make it higher. We also erect the solar panel A-frame, but put off installing the seismometer until tomorrow, to give the concrete time to set.

We check into Cabins 1 and 2 at Moose Point Camps, a wonderful old hunting camp on the shore of Fish River Lake. Mr. John Martin, it proprietor, fills us in on around-camp improvements. The hens have been working out well, and are providing fresh eggs. Broccoli is ripening in the vegetable garden. Moose, the Camp’s dog, is fishing in the lake, standing knee-deep in the water beside the dock, watching for fish to swim out from underneath it. We sight three garter snakes on the lawn. Philip and I head out onto Fish River Lake, he swimming and me kayaking. A bald eagle flies overhead and several loons are floating on the water. We go as far as one of the small islands, the same islands that Vadim Levin and I visited in a canoe last spring. A rain shower begins to fall just as we reach the island, but quickly passes by. The Camp serves a delicious chicken casserole for dinner. The sunset over Fish River Lake, which we watch through the picture windows of the lodge, is very pretty. After dinner, we sit on the porch of the cabin, reviewing the last several months of seismic data, using a laptop computer. We have recorded several earthquakes, including a local earthquake in Sidney Maine and a teleseism from the South Atlantic Ridge.

August 21, 2013. Mr. Martin serves us a breakfast of fresh eggs. We talk about the proposed Bald Mountain mine, located about seven miles to the south of the camp, which will exploit a massive sulfide deposit for copper, zinc and gold. We decide to visit the site, if time permits. We first finish the seismic installation, and then take a drive towards the site of the mine. We stop first at Carr Pond, a small but pretty body of water. We then drive several roads in the general area of the mine, but without finding the exploratory boreholes that Mr. Martin has told us about. We then drive over to Fish River Falls, a small but beautiful waterfall on the lake’s outlet stream. It adjoins the Fish River Campsite, an attractive site but not one at which I have yet stayed. We walk a trail that descends past a series of falls and cascades. The final waterfall, only a few feet high, flows in small rivulets among rock ledges at a wide spot in the river that is very well lit by the sun. We have fun walking out onto the rocks and admiring the view.

Back at Moose Point camps, I paddle a kayak around the largest of the islands near the camp. The afternoon is quite breezy and the lake surface is choppy, making the kayaking a bit challenging. I sight the bald eagle again, flying over the lake. I hear loons on the way back.

The Camp serves steak for dinner. We all sit around at the table, chatting, until late in the evening. The sunset is again spectacular.

August 22, 2013. It’s a clear, bright morning at Moose Point Camps. Mr. Martin serves us a breakfast of blueberry pancakes. We pack up and head off to the Deboulie Public Reserved Land, about an hour’s drive deeper into the North Maine Woods. We stop briefly at Pushineer and Fish Ponds and then park at the Togue Pond Hut, where we have permission to install a seismometer by the facility’s shed. This installation is a little different than the others that we have done, for the solar panels are to be on a mast rather than an A-frame. We have brought a sixteen-foot pipe for this purpose, and spend considerable time discussing how we will attach it to the shed’s roof. Philip then digs a deep hole with a post-hole shovel and we install the mast, set in concrete in the bottom and supported at mid-height by a bracket attached to the roof. We also install the vault and assemble, but do not attach, the solar panel assembly.

We have dinner of chicken and couscous. We spend the evening in the hut, reading by the dim lights of its gas lamps. The hut is a log cabin affair, with a nicely finished interior with propane-powered fridge and stove. However, it is rather too warm for me; I set up my tent and sleep outside, beside it. Rain falls during the night. I put tarps over our still-setting concrete, so it will not be damaged by the runoff.

August 23, 2013. The morning is a bit dreary. We have a breakfast of pancakes and then finish the installation of the seismometer. It talks all three of us to raise the solar panel assembly up onto the mast. Philip and I, standing on the roof of the shed, heave it up while Helen operates a safety rope. The rest of the installation is routine.

Togue Pond was our last seismometer site, so we are done. We drive back to the Fish River Checkpoint, and then part ways, with Philip heading back to his home town of New Sweeden and Helen and I heading back to New York. We drove more or less straight back to Orono to unload gear at Kelly Storage, and then continued on towards southern Maine. Helen had never eaten Maine lobster, so I took her to Estes Lobster House, on Casco Bay in the town of Harpswell. We had a pleasant time eating on the outside deck of the restaurant, which has a great view of Ash Cove and Bar Island. The afternoon has brightened and seascape is startlingly beautiful. We had hoped to stay the night in Brunswick, but cannot find an affordable hotel along the Maine coast (it being a Friday night), so we wind up driving to the inland city of Lewiston, where the rates are lower.

August 24, 2013. Helen and I stop at the Starbucks at the Grey Service Plaza along the Maine Turnpike for breakfast. We then drive straight back to New York, arriving at around 2PM.