September 14, 2016
On Tuesday, I was tired, so just drove down
to look at the southern part of the park, before going to Millinocket for breakfast and a little shopping. I spent most of the
afternoon in my hammock, before doing a little local hike to see a
pretty section of a creek near my campground.
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Sunrise forecast the cloudy day |
So I was back to full energy by
Wednesday. Since I planned to hike very close to my camp, I even
slept in until 6:00 AM and had a leisurely breakfast before setting
out to drive to the trailhead for Trout Creek Mountain Trail. Since
the day was cloudy, I waited until mid morning to start my hike,
hoping for a break in the clouds. The weather stayed pretty dreary,
but the light was great for the little things I found.
This trail offers lots of views of Matagamon Lake and East Branch of the Penobscot River and must be fantastic in early morning
light. It was the consistently prettiest trail of any I hiked during
my visit. It has a lot of deciduous trees which are just about to
gain their fall colors, so it will just get prettier during the next
month or so.
The trail started by going uphill, and had lots of pretty easy sections in between more uphill sections. It didn't have many rock falls, and only a few places that required high step-ups. And
there were seven places with great vistas, including a place that
went along the north edge of the mountain for about a tenth of a
mile.
This is definitely a must-hike trail if
you are visiting the north part of Baxter State Park. And you could
even camp right next to it in Trout Creek Farm Campground and not have to drive to the
trailhead. This is about the first thing you find after arriving at
the north entrance to Baxter State Park.
I had hoped for hammock time when I got back to camp, but the rain started almost as soon as I arrived. So I read a book in my tent and enjoyed the rain.
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The few trees that are turning really popped in the dim light |
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Such a lovely trail |
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I love the lichen and moss "paintings" on the boulders |
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On a clear day you can see forever - but not today |
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The trail goes up and over this outcropping |
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Someone had enjoyed building cairns up here |
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These are some kind of wood asters |
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The trail is winding up this outcropping |
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View from another overlook |
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A very strange mushroom |
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I love these lichens - they are very soft, although they look hard |
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I love the closeup view of them as well |
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Views of this lake set me dreaming of a paddling/camping trip |
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These mountains are across the East Fork of the Penobscot River |
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I thought the sky portended a clearing but it didn't happen |
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The granite in this area was pink |
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These mushrooms were barely larger than matchsticks |
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I spent several minutes getting a portrait of this young toad - just larger than my thumbnail |
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This random piece of birchbark looked like someone had carved it into a rose |
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This was the most perfectly colored maple leaf |
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My favorite pair of mushrooms |
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I found several of these strange fungi in an area about a yard in diameter |
When this publishes, I'll be playing with a friend in Acadia National Park. So I'll have a few more blogs from Maine while I start my migration south. I'm stopped at a Library a few miles from the park. You can see I'm all ready to grab my friend from her plane tomorrow and start playing.
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Heading out |
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