[Journal entry for December 25, 2006] Bradbury Moutain State Park, Pownal, Maine. Ed Abbott and I take a Christmas Day hike. The day is just hovering around freezing. We pay our $3 admission to the Park, pick up a trail map from the kiosk, and park in the lot by the picnic area. We take the Summit Trail up to the Overlook. This trail is steep, but very short owing to this so-called mountain being more of a low hill. The trail passes several vertical rock faces. I mull over whether or not these are natural or anthropogenic. They could be glacially plucked, for I see no signs of drill holes associated with quarrying. The rock of the mountain is a pegmatite that is a bit more resistant to erosion than the surrounding schists of the surrounding lowlands. A dozen people or so are atop the Overlook. It is the highest point in the area by far, and commands a wide view of the woodland and occasional farm houses to the east, and of Casco Bay, beyond.

We spend a few minutes exploring the area of the overlook, and then take the Tote Road Trail westward through the woods. It passes several small ponds, which have patches that are covered with a thin layer of ice crystals. These crystals, some of which are a yard long, make a nice herring-bone pattern on the pond’s surface. We find many interesting types of vegetation in this are, including mosses, lichens and fungi.

We then pick up the Boundary Trail, which follows a stone wall that runs along the park boundary. The wall is unusual in being composed of rather flattish stone, and in places has a rather open lattice. The trail is rather muddy, although in some places beautiful curved ice crystals are growing up from frost heave. The Park boundary is marked by “No Hunting” signs. I am not so comforted by these signs, since they imply that hunters might be lurking just on the other side of the wall. Yet I hear no gun shots the whole day.

We cross several small, briskly flowing streams. One has rather a lot of foam on its surface. Yet is flowing out from within the park, so I doubt the foam is due to pollution. Perhaps it is natural? Towards the end of the Boundary Trail we come up to another pond, small but somewhat larger than the ones we have encountered previously. It has both open water and vegetated sections. We sit at a wooden bench placed at the pond’s edge, looking for wildlife, but seeing none. The Boundary Trail joins the Northern Loop Trail a little beyond this point.

We pay a brief visit to the Cattle Pound, a small field enclosed by a rather solid-looking stone wall. And I explore the Feldspar Quarry. This mine is easily spotted from its enormous tailings pile, which is immediately adjacent to the trail. It is composed of tan-colored feldspar rich rock, decorated with the occasional flake of shiny black biotite mica. The Quarry itself consists of two trenches set at right angles to one another. One is relative narrow, and is presumably just afforded access to the other, which is deeper and wider.

Trip time 1:45.