[Journal entry for June 16-24, 2014; Fieldtrip C14 of the QMIII Project, the North Maine Woods and to Downeast Maine].

June 16, 2014. I picked up Trevor Neitz, an LDEO Summer Intern, from the Lamont Campus and the two of us drove up to Maine. The day was very pleasant, with sun and late-spring temperatures. We encountered little traffic and so arrived in southern Maine ahead of schedule. We decided to examine the rocks at Wolfe Neck Woods State Park, in Freeport Maine. They are part of the Avalon micro-continent that was sutured onto North American during the Devonian Period, about four hundred million years ago. We crossed the Norumbega Fault at Mast landing, a marshy area between the town and the park.

Wolfe Neck Woods State Park is on a peninsula in Casco Bay. We parked at the main lot and walked first to the east side of the peninsula, which command a splendid view of Casco Bay. Googins Island, just a ridge of rock with a copse of trees, is immediately offshore. The rock along the shore of the peninsula is gneiss intruded by granite. We spent a few minutes examine the contacts between these two rock units. Additionally, we found many places with glacial scratches that date back to the Ice Age, twenty thousand years ago. The rocks and gravels along the shore are covered with seaweed. We found the shells of a few horseshoe crabs among them.

We then hiked the Harraseeket Trail. It first follows the east shore; we were able walk down to the water at several points, each of which offered slightly different views of Casco Bay. We were surprised to encounter along the trail many patches of Lady Slipper, a wildflower with a shape somewhat like a tulip and with a single lavender flower. The trail then crosses the peninsula, winding trough rather marshy Hemlock woods. Unfortunately, the Woolly Adelgid aphid has taken hold here. I don not imagine that these beautiful trees will survive for more than a few years.

We soon arrived at the west shore, which is separated from the mainland by a narrow bay, the outley of the Harraseeket River. The trail led to a small cove lined with marsh grasses and floored with mud flats. Some of the rocks along the shore showed signs of having been blasted – I’m not sure why, as the amount of gneiss removed was small, too small to have improved navigation significantly. We found a pegmatite ledge near the head of the cove that contained small vugs (cavities) lined with mica and quartz crystals. It also show signs of having been worked, but more understandingly, for gemstones such as beryl and tourmaline occur in this setting.

We then rejoined the trail, which led back across the peninsula, passing through a small hemlock cathedral – a patch of woods that is open and unvegetated, except for the hemlocks themselves whose stately trunks and high boughs give the appearance of the pillars and vaults of a Gothic church. The trail passed an open area that looked anthropogenic and which was, perhaps, and old landfill before leading aback to the parking lot.

About two hours.

We then drove to Harpswell Maine and stayed the night at Seahaven Cottage in the Auburn Colony. We at a chicken dinnersitting on the porch, which commands a nice view of Merriconeag Sound. After dinner, we downloaded the seismometer and spot-checked the data. Later in the evening, we discovered that the cottage’s internet connection was down and spent a few minutes troubleshooting it so that we could read our email. We then turned in for the night, glad to have sleeping bags for the night was chilly and the cottage unheated.

June 17, 2014. In the morning, after a breakfast of omlets and coffee, we headed north. We stopped at Shin Pond Village, a resort in Mt. Chase Maine, to select a campsite, settling eventually on T12. We chatted with the proprietor, Terri Hill, an upbeat woman who I knew from previous visits. She filled us in on the local happenings, saying that the winter, which was unusually snowy, was extremely good for her business, which serves snowmobilers, among others. She also introduced us to her new Black Lab, Remmy, who replaced her former dog that died during the winter. Remmy, still a pup, was playful and extremely curious.

We then drove out to the Hay Lake forest service facility, and downloaded the seismometer there. The servicing went without a hitch, so we decided to drive up to Ashland Maine and service the seismometer by Six Mile Checkpoint, as well. It’s a long drive, but we wanted to make use of the sunny weather. We chatted with the attendant, Rita, who I had met before. The servicing of the seismometer took but a few minutes. We then drove back, stopping to view several of the pretty rivers and wetlands along Route 11. I have driven this road many times, and am familiar with its many scenic spots. We saw a grouse, a fox and a deer as we drove back.

We had dinner of pot roast (from a can) and egg noodles before turning in. The night was full of the sound of frogs, for our campsite was close to a small pond.

June 18, 2014. We woke up to rain. Rather than to endure the elements, we had breakfast in the Shin Pond Village restaurant. We then packed up and headed north.

Our first stop was Moose Point Camps, a wonderful old hunting lodge on Fish River Lake. We met John Martin, its proprietor, as we drove in who urged us to have a look at improvements around the camp. The rain had tapered off during the morning and the sky, though cloudy, was now dry. We serviced the seismometer, which was in good working order but which had been chewed by some animal. We made some repairs and then looked around the Camp. Several of chickens and roosters, hatched last year, have matured into large, attractively-feathered individuals. I suppose that the others became dinner. The vegetable garden was planted but well behind last year’s version. Spring has come late to the North Woods. We met with Jason, one of the staff who we had met last year. He told of his bear-hunting exploits.

We then drove to Deboullie Public Reserved Land, a large tract of state land about twenty miles north of Fish River Lake. The road was full of potholes and very slow going. We had to make way for a group of military personnel in large trucks, out on some sort of exercise. We set up camp at Perch Pond and then serviced the seismometer at the Conservation Department cabin on Togue Pond. A trail crew of four college-aged students was staying there. They kindly made us tea, to which we added some of our cookies. We chatted with them, showing them the seismometer and a sample seismogram. Just before we left, Dave, the recreation ranger, dropped by, to wait for a delivery of propane.

We headed back Perch Pond Campsite. I took a before-dinner walk, heading first south along a road that followed the lake shore. It passed several campsites and then slowly faded away. I found and hauled back to camp a heavy slate boulder; it had glacial scratches that I wanted to show to Trevor. I then took the main road over to the dam at the other side of the pond. The sky was clearing and the lake was now beautifully lit up by the evening sun.

We at a dinner of pork and couscous and then spent an hour reviewing and backing up data. The night was quite.

June 19, 2014. We awoke to a beautifully clear and cloudless morning. While this is my third visit to Deboullie, it is the first without rain. We decided to make use of the great conditions by climbing the Deboullie Fire Tower, which is located atop of prominent hill overlooking Deboullie Pond. After a breakfast of blueberry pancakes, we packed up and drove over to the trailhead of the Ridge Loop, near Red River Camp. This trail is blazed in blue, but I think all of the trails in the area are also blazed in that color. The trail follows a low wooded ridge just south of the pond, working its way up and down over small knobs. After about mile, it joins a woods road that leads to a campground at the western end of the pond, by an inlet stream. We spent a few minutes viewing the lake, stream and surrounding hills, and then continued along the trail. After crossing the stream via a footbridge, it begins to follow the northern shore of the lake. The route worried us, for we were expecting it to ascend up to the hill to the fire tower. After a tense half hour, we came to clearing, complete with picnic tables. A very steep spur trail, leading off with a stone staircase, headed up the hill. We huffed up and after a strenuous fifteen minutes reached the tower. It is in a clearing, besides an abandoned and deteriorating cabin. I found climbing the ladder up to the booth at the top rather disconcerting, for it is very exposed. The view from the top is well worth the anxiety, for it commands a three hundred sixty degree panoramic view of the area. The two-tome color of the trees, with lighter colored hardwoods amid darker evergreens is striking. The views to the east (Deboullie and Pushineer Ponds) and to the west (Gardner Pond) are especially beautiful. The hill beyond Gardner Pond has the scar of an old landslide, with a huge talus slope that extends right down to the lake.

The first moments of the climb down was especially disconcerting, for getting a firm grasp on the ladder, which was below the lever of the floor of the booth, is tricky. We hiked back down to lake level and continued along the Ridge Loop Trail. It crossed a talus slope, smaller than the one on Gardner Pond yet still substantial. It reminded me of the Giant Stairs along the Shore Trail at the foot of the Hudson Palisades Cliffs, below the Lamont Campus. Once past the rocks, the trail continued along the lakeshore, leading finally to a boat launch at the east end of the lake. Weirdly, an unattended pickup truck, with engine still running and running lights still shining, was sitting in the lake fifty feet beyond the end of the ramp. I suppose that it became stuck there while launching a boat and that its owner had gone to summon assistance. We could see the fire tower on the high point above the opposite side of the lake. It looked tiny from this perspective. We then followed the road, which loops east of Pushineer Pond before finally crossing a small isthmus between Pushineer and Fish Ponds. I was getting worried before we reached this spot, which I recognized from a previous visit, for I did not know the road system well. A few minutes later, we were back at the car. The hike had taken about four hours, and covered about seven miles.

On the advice of the ranger, we exited the North Woods at St. Francis Checkpoint, taking the northern road out of Deboullie, which is in far better shape than the southern. We stopped at Joe’s Country Store for gas and a snack, and the re-entered the North Woods at Dickey Checkpoint. Rain began to fall. We took Camp 105 Road up to Estcourt Road, and serviced the seismometer there. The geophone was not functioning properly and we wound up spending several hours futzing with it, deciding in the end to swap it out. We then drove over to the Little Black Campsite, on the Little Black River. The campsite is in a wide grassy meadow that would be very pleasant in sunny weather but which sported a covered picnic table for rainy days. We were able to enjoy our dinner of beef stew (canned) and couscous. Unfortunately, the site’s numerous mosquitoes enjoyed us.

June 20, 2014. The night was very cold for June, in the mid-forties. The morning temperature was forty-eight degrees Fahrenheit. We had a breakfast of omelets and coffee before driving back over to the seismometer site again. The instrument was working; only time will tell whether or not our efforts led to a real improvement in data quality.

We then drove south, first along the logging roads of the North Woods. We became stick in a traffic jam due to road construction, and waited almost an hour for a road crew to close a hole in the road made to insert a drain pipe. While waiting, I saw a member of the weasel family, possibly and American Mink, , run across the road. It seemed larger than a least weasel and had a completely black coat. After we reached Ft. Kent, we took Route 11, followed by a series of lesser (but paved) roads that Trevor navigated, until we reached the town of Springfield Maine. We then headed west on Route 6, a major east-west highway, until we connected with the Amazon Road, an unpaved woods road that leads to the town of Grand Lake Stream, Maine. We then took Little River Road, another unpaved woods road, to the state-sponsored campsite on Third Machias Lake. It is at the end of a long access road that, for a while, runs along the top of a narrow esker. We set up our tents along the lakeshore, not so far from a little beach.

June 21, 2014. The morning was sunny. We spent the day servicing three seismic stations, one at Camp Vick, a cabin on the Machias River, and two in the Downeast Lakes Land Trust. The Camp Vick station proved noiser than we had hoped, for reasons that we don’t yet understand. Data quality at the southern Land Trust station is super. The vertical component of the geophone at the northern station had failed; none of our usual tricks succeeded in resuscitating it. I found the C-clamp that I had lost at the site last fall. It has rusted a little but is still serviceable.

One the way to the northern station, we stopped at Dobsis Dam, a pretty spot between Pocumcus Lake to the east and Sysladobsis Lake, to the west. This small dam is earth-filled, with a wooden fish ladder on the Pocumcus (downhill) side. We crossed the dam and walked around on the land north of it, visiting the shoreline of both lakes. In addition to the outlet stream, a small canal, probably from an old mill, leads away from the dam. It now sports a beaver lodge. On the way back, we passed several groups of yellow butterflies, gathered on the road. I suppose they were licking up salt.

After servicing the stations, we had a lunch of pepperoni pizza at the Pine Tree Store in Grand Lake Stream. We then drove west and south unpaved roads to Cobscook Bay State Park, which is on the Maine coast on one of the many waterways that branch off of Passamaquoddy Bay, a broad bay that straddles the US-Canada border. We parked near the toll house, and hiked a loop around the eastern half of the park, which is a small peninsula. We hiked down to mud flats on the Broad Cove side, which looks out onto several small islands. Several of the rock ledges have prominent glacial scratches. We then crossed over to the shore on the Burnt Cove side. Fossiliferous mudstones, dipping landward, are exposed on the low sea cliff. We found several fossil brachiopod shells exposed on the rock layers, as well as several larger fossils that might have been some sort of coral. We continued on towards the end of the peninsula, which hosts a camping shelter. This spot is, I believe, where I camped during a college fieldtrip, forty years ago and whose view of moonlit islands in the bay beyond, viewed late at night, so impressed me. We climbed down to the shore and examined the rock ledges, which are a reddish tuff-breccia with pebble-sized clasts. The view of several nearby islands and the land on the far side of Whiting Bay is very beautiful. We then walked back. We noticed that a lichen with very large leaves clings to the trunks of maple trees, but not to any other tree species. We filled up our water bottles at the park bathhouse before returning to our campsite at Third Machias Lake.

We had spaghetti and sausage for dinner. Several groups of people had arrived. On one side of us were a group of college students and on the other, a couple with a small child. We also met Matt, a Maine Guide with four hunting dogs, although he was only passing through and left before nightfall. The college students made a racket that lasted long into the night. I enjoyed the music they were playing, though it was a bit too loud for my taste, but worried when they began to argue among themselves and blow their car horns at one another; nevertheless, they left Trevor and me alone. They left suddenly at little after midnight. I found at the next morning that Mark, another late-arriving camper, had talked them into calling it quits.

June 22, 2014. The morning is clear. Trevor and I have a breakfast of oatmeal and coffee and then head south to service the seismometers at Wesley and Howard Cove. The Wesley instrument is fine. The Howard Cove instrument is catatonic for no discernible reason; the exterior of the site is untouched. We spend several hours futzing with it, finally deciding to swap out the data recorder. Even so, we leave with one dead geophone channel and a GPS clock that is not convincingly locked onto the satellites. But there is nothing further we can do today with the spare components we have on hand; I may have to swap out more components later in the summer.

We spend a few minutes walking around the Howard Cove sea cliffs, which are tall and dramatic. We then visit Rogue Bluffs State Park, and examine the geology there. We park by the beach and take the Starr Trail across the marshy eastern end of Simpson Pond, a small body of water cut off from the sea by the spit of land that makes the beach. We then join the Houghton Hill Trail, which crosses an old apple orchard. We connect with the Cove Trail, which winds through the woods until it reaches the shore at Pond Cove. It then follows along the cove, offering several viewpoints, including an especially nice one at Rose Point. A sizable ship has been wrecked in the cove; its decaying hulk decorates the far shore. We switch to the Mihill Trail, which takes us on a long loop through the woods (mostly Hemlock), rejoining finally Houghton’s Hill Trail. The intersection is complicated; I need to consult my compass to determine which direction on Houghton’s Hill Trail leads back to beach. Last year, two hikers died in a terrible accident in which they first became lost in the woods on a foggy day, and then, after being led back to their cars by a ranger, became disoriented and drove their car off a boat ramp and drowned. I, an experienced hiker, needed to consult my compass on a sunny day. I have tremendous sympathy for a novice having to deal with this trail under less favorable circumstances. The trail takes us back to Schoppee Point Road at a point near a church, and we walk the road back to the beach. We pass several pretty patches of wildflowers, including lupine and sea rose.

We drive Schoppee Point Road to the boat ramp at its end (the site of last year’s drowning) and view the sea from that point. The sky seaward is clear, but thick cumulous clouds have gathered over the land and we wonder whether our campsite is still dry. After making the long drive back, we find it still to be dry. We have a dinner of ribs and hash brown potatoes. The loons are loud during the night.

June 23, 2014. The morning is again clear. We have a breakfast of oatmeal and coffee and then spend an hour or so straightening up our gear, backing up data and doing some paperwork. We then drive up to Grand Lake Stream, where I am scheduled to give a public lecture in the evening. We encounter a snapping turtle and a young moose as we drive along Little River Road. We check in with the staff of the Land Trust, who are hosting my talk and then take the rest of the day off.

We rent a canoe from Shoreline Camps, on the shore of Big Lake and spend several hours exploring its northern end. We first kayaked up Bonney Brook, a small stream. The water was full of aquatic plants such a Yellow Water Lily and Pickerelweed. We passed a telephone pole near the mouth of the stream that hosted a Osprey nest. Both parents were about, either sitting on the nest or flying near it; I suppose that they were tending unseen chicks. The adults occasionally made short shrill cries. We paddled past a beaver lodge up to a beaver dam, which blocked further passage. We then paddled a southward loop among the islands of the lake, including Moody, Buckman, Hardwood and Greenlaw. They are wooded, with trees that come right down to, and often overhand, the water’s edge, and with few beaches. Many are inhabited; small cabins are nestled between the trees. We entered the mouth of another small stream. It meandered through a broad flood plain full of hummocks of grass and low bushes. We went upstream about a half mile, looking for a place to put ashore for lunch, but found none. So we returned to Big Lake and pulled ashore at the public boat launch that is at the end of Big Lake Landing Road. We sat on the floating dock, enjoying the sun and watching loons and other water birds float past. The sun was hot and bright, though the air temperature was only in the mid-seventies, Fahrenheit. We paddled one final loop, around Greenlaw Island, before returning the canoe to Shoreline Camps. A mature Bald Eagle flew over us as we rounded the island.

We then drove back to Grand Lake Stream and spent the remaining hours of the afternoom at the Pine Tree Store, reading newspapers and eating a pepperoni pizza. I also worked on my talk, adding a few photos from our trip. Trevor added a figure showing a teleseism recorded on one of the Land Trust instruments. At 6:30 PM I present a public lecture, “When Maine was California” at the local community center (the former school). In it, I highlighted the period, about four hundred million years ago, when faulting and volcanism built the major landforms of the state, and when hydrothermal activity laid down mineral deposits. Twenty-seven people attended, which I considered an excellent showing, especially given the small size of the town.

Though we kept an eye out for more moose, we saw none as we drove back to Third Macias Lake. But we did spot a rabbit and a deer. Except for us and the loons, the campsite is again empty.

June 24, 2014. The loons were loud during the night. The morning is overcast but dry. We eat a breakfast of oatmeal, pack up and head back to New York. It’s 8:05 AM. It’s a long drive, and though we make several short stops for gas and food, we head steadily back without any detours for outings. I drop Trevor off in Manhattan at about 7:30 PM and am back at my home in Tappan NY by 8:30 PM.

We saw quite a variety of animals on this trip. Highlights include American Mink, Bald Eagle, Leopard Frog, Loon, Moose, Oprey, Rabbit, Red Fox, Ruffled Grouse, Snapping Turtle, Turkey, Whitetail Deer. The fieldtrip lasted nine days and eight nights, and covered 2076 miles.