[Fieldtrip 15B of the QMII Project, Downeast Maine and the North Maine Woods, June 15-22, 2015]. On this trip, LDEO Summer Interns Thomas Harper and Peter Skryzalin and I serviced and decommissioned several QMIII seismic stations.

June 15, 2015. We left the Lamont Campus after Peter and Thomas arrived on the shuttle bus and drove to my house in Tappan NY, where we loaded gear onto my Ford Escape. The day was damp and cold, with intermittent rain. By mid-morning we were packed up and began our drive to Maine. We stopped at the Charleton Service Plaza on the MassPike, which roughly the halfway point, for lunch and then continued onward, reaching Brunswick Maine at about 5PM. Peter and Thomas clicked a photo of Bowdoin College, which they texted to Georgia, another intern, who is a student there. We stop at Vegetable Corner for some groceries and then continued on to Seahaven Cottage in the Auburn Colony (Harpswell Maine), arriving at 5:30PM.

We unpacked our gear and started up the wood stove, for the cottage was cold and damp when we arrived. We then worked on the Harpswell seismic station, replacing the data logger, which has failed earlier in the spring. We then cooked a dinner of Jambalaya with pork, using a cast iron deep skillet.

June 16, 2015. The morning was again grey and cold, with intermittent rain. We drove down to the Town Dock after packing up, and poked around the shore for few minutes, examining the outcrops of phyllites along the shore and the glacial scratches on the surface of the rock ledges. We then drove north to Orono, where we loaded gear at Kelly Storage, and then further, to Washington County. We stopped by the Forest Service at Jonesport Maine, hoping to chat with one of the rangers there, but found the office already closed for the day. We then drove up to the Wesley Forest Service garage and decommissioned the seismometer there. Evening was upon us by the time we finished up, so we drove over to the Airline Rips campsite, on the Machias River just south of Route 9. We were the only campers and took the one site with a lean-to, even though we planned to sleep in our tents. We cooked a dinner of spaghetti with Italian sausage using the Coleman stove that I had brought. The rain had tapered off during the course of the day, and we were able to light up a campfire in the fire ring by the lean-to and relax in front of it for an hour or so before turning in. Thomas tried out his new hammock, its lines stretched between two trees; Peter and I each had our own tent.

June 17, 2015. We woke to sun. I spent a half hour or so walking along the section of the Machias River near the campsite. We had a breakfast of egg sandwiches, packed up and headed south to Bucks Harbor, where we spent the morning decommissioning the Howard Cove seismometer. It was on a sea cliff with a beautiful view of Machias Bay. However, it was a quarter mile over rough terrain to our parked car. We spent four hours carrying heavy equipment back and forth between seismometer and vehicle. Afterward, we had a late lunch of salami sandwiches on Jasper Beach, sitting on cobbles of dull red rhyolite and gazing out upon the sea.

We drove up to Camp Vic, on Machias River Road, but had a flat tire on its access road. A root or sharp rock cut right through the sidewall. I changed the tire while Peter and Thomas serviced the seismometer. Afterward, I spent a few minutes on the very pretty bank of the Machias River, below the camp, admiring the view.

We drove north to the Second Machias Lake campsite and set up for the night. The evening was very beautiful. I walked over to the wetland east of the lake. The songs of frogs were loud; a beaver splashed its tail and swam away as I approached the water. A lodge, new from last year, has been built on the shore of the marsh. We cooked a dinner of chicken and couscous on the Coleman stove and then sat around the campfire, talking. After dark, we walked down to the lakeshore and admired the night sky, which was mostly clear. Venus and Jupiter were bright on the western horizon; the Big Dipper was overhead. A very bright satellite – the International Space Station, maybe – crossed the sky, its light extinguishing as it neared the western horizon. It crossed the terminator, I guess.

The loud cries of Loons broke the quiet of the night, now and then.

June 18, 2015. It’s another sunny day. We left our gear at Second Machias Lake campsite and drove first to the Land Trust North seismometer, north of the town of Grand Lake Stream. After servicing it, we drove to the VIP Tire and Service Center in Calais Maine, in an attempt to purchase a new tire. They had none of the right type but were able to order one to be delivered to their branch in Presque Isle for tomorrow. We had lunch at the local Subway and then drove back to Grand Lake Stream and then south to the Land Trust South seismometer. We spent about two hours decommissioning it; the work went faster than at Howard Cove, both because we were more practiced and because we could park very near the installation. We drove back to the Second Machias Lake campsite after finishing up.

We das a dinner of canned Dinty Moore beef stew. We had been intending to have it with the egg noodles that we had purchased at the Pine Tree Store in Grand Lake Stream, but, mysteriously, we could not find the box of them when we arrived at our campsite. So we had a side dish of spaghetti, instead. We all swam in the lake. The water was cold and rather too shallow, or at least right next to shore, but it served to get us cleaned up. I walked to the lakeshore on the eastern side of the lake to watch the sunset, getting my feet rather too damp as I navigated through the bushes by its marshy edge. The sunset was very beautiful; the yellow sun sank beneath the trees, making nearby clouds glow first golden and then red. While I was away, Peter and Thomas had built another camp fire. We sat around it for an hour or so, making another trip to the little beach beneath the campsite to view the stars. We sighted one satellite, much dimmer than yesterday’s.

June 19, 2015. We left Second Machias Lake early and after dropping off batteries at the Wesley garage had breakfast of egg sandwiches and coffee at the Fox General Store, on Route 9 just west of the Route 192 intersection. After shuffling gear at Kelley Storage in Orono Maine, we drove north on Interstate 95. We stopped briefly at the overlook above Salmon Stream Lake to view Mt Katahdin. The morning was considerably cloudier than yesterday’s and while the mountain’s flanks were plainly visible, Katahdin’s summit was shroud in clouds. We took the Interstate all the way to Houlton Maine and then took Route 1 north towards Presque Isle. The afternoon turned sunny; the views of Mars Hill and its many wind turbines and of the many potato fields were very nice.

We arrived in Presque Isle at about 2:00PM and by 2:45PM were underway again, with our replacement tire on board. We drove straight to Dickey Maine, passing through the towns of New Sweden, Fort Kent and Allagash. We stopped at the supermarket in Fort Kent to resupply. We registered at the Little Black River Checkpoint in Dickey Maine, chatted a bit with Darlene, a staff member interested in photography, and then drove through the Dickey gate into the North Maine Woods. We took Camp 106 Road twenty miles due north, stopping briefly to view Rocky Mountain from a high point along the road. We arrived at the Black River campsite on Estcourt Road about 6:45PM, just before sunset. The mosquitoes were pretty bad, but the black flies were not nearly as bad as I had feared. (While the many thousands of bites that I have sustained over the last three years have made me immune to the irritation of their bites, Peter and Thomas are susceptible).

I have stayed at this campsite twice before. It features a picnic table in a small pavilion in the center of large grassy field, with an outhouse a short distance down a trail into the woods. We noticed moose prints along the road by the campsite, but saw no moose. We cooked a dinner of pork spare ribs and macaroni and cheese. The stars were really brilliant once the evening glow had faded. Peter and I tried to take a photo of Venus with my telephoto lens, but succeeded in getting only a smudge. I was unable to find the right camera settings for a tiny but very bright disk in the center of a dark field.

June 20, 2015. The morning is grey and rain is threatening. After a breakfast of egg sandwiches, we pack up and headed over to the Estcourt Road seismometer and spent several hours decommissioning it. We swapped our new tire for the spare and then headed back to Dickey. About noon, we spot a moose – a large cow – beside Camp 106 Road at about Mile Marker 11. We signed out at Little Black River Checkpoint, stopped to chat with Forest Service Ranger Richard Martin, who we met at the Two Rivers Lunch in Allagash, signed in again at the St Francis Checkpoint, and began our trek to Deboullie Public Reverved Lands. We spotted a Ruffed Grouse as we drove the road to Deboullie. We arrived around 2:30PM and set up camp at the Perch Pond South campsite. This campsite is on the southeastern side of Perch Pond, beneath trees growing on a slope above the lakeshore.

We took a hike up onto the prominent hill to the north of Perch Pond. It starts at the Whitman Trailhead, off of the road that passes Togue and Perch Ponds and climbs steeply up onto the hill, passing through dense woods of mostly evergreens. We stopped at a north-facing overlook, where we had a view of a pond – Dickey Pond, perhaps – as well as a large vertical rock face on an adjacent hill. We spotted a Garder Snake there, coiled up in a patch of sunlight. A bit further along the trail, after climbing a steep wooden staircase, we came to a south-facing overlook with a great view of Perch Pond. We continued along the trail to what appeared to be the summit of the hill and then turned about and retraced our path back down to the road. We made a brief detour to Perch Pond Dam, at the western end of the pond. The late afternoon clouds were beautifully reflected in the still surface of the pond. We spotted several more snakes near the dam, including a Maritime Garder Snake. A male Ruffed Grouse challenged us as we walked back along the main road. It puffed up its neck feathers and fanned out its tail feathers, looking something like a miniature version of the archetypal Thansgiving turkey. It lunged at us a few time before scampering off. A few minutes later, we spotted a juvenile Red Fox peering at us curiously from beneath the underbrush.

Peter and Thomas grilled our steak dinner on the campfire while I cooked egg noodles and gravy on the Coleman Stove. (We bought these noodles in Ft Kent; the ones we bought in Grand Lake Stream never turned up). The Loons were loud during the night.

June 21, 2015. The morning is grey, with rain threatening. We have a breakfast of fried eggs and bacon, pack up, and head over to the Togue Pond Seismometer, which was in the wood shed by a Department of Environmental Protection cabin. We decommissioned the seismometer, spending considerable time removing the steel solar panel mast and repairing the holes that we had made two years ago in the side of the shed for wires. Rain began to fall as we were packing up. We took the southern road out, driving thirty miles and exiting the North Maine Woods at Fish River Checkpoint. We stopped at the Ashland 1 Stop, purchasing a pizza which we ate under a pavillion at a park beside the Aroosook River. We then drove straight back to Orono, where we offloaded most of our gear at Kelly Storage. We then drove straight back to Seahaven Cottage in Harpswell Maine. We passed a bird – some kind of eagle, I guess - in large nest atop a power pylon along Interstate 295 near Bowdoinham Maine. We pulled up to Seahaven at around 8PM.

We cleaned up. Peter and Thomas got the wood stove going. We prepared a surprisingly good dinner of kielbasa and vegetables, cooked in a big cash iron skillet. We sat around for a brief time and then turned in.

June 22, 2015. We have pancakes and bacon for breakfast, pack up and head back to New York. I take a route through Freeport Maine, in order to avoid road construction in Brunswick Maine . It passed the “famous” LL Bean store. We stop for lunch at Charleton Plaza, on the MassPike, which is about the halfway point. We arrive back at Lamont at 5:15PM, in time for Peter and Thomas to catch the last shuttle bus back to Manhattan. After stopping for gas, I arrive back at my Tappan NY home at 5:30PM.

We drove a total of 1985.5 miles over eight days. We spent two nights in Sehaven Cottage and the other five nights camping.