Cow Moose at Stump Pond No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy, even bored solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on himself and thereby learning his true and hidden strength. ~~Jack Kerouac
My last full day here. It's 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, is 35 degrees and cloudy. I'm sitting at the picnic table behind my cabin, next to the pond. I can hear Big Niagara Falls, which is several miles away, on the Nesowadnehunk Stream. I was awakened again by the loons calling around 6:00 a.m., the long wailing calls, those haunting sounds. When I step outside I see that mom has returned! You know, she was gone about the same length of time as Ranger Diane. I think she got tired of being responsible for Junior and decided to spend a weekend in town, like Diane. But she’s back, so all is well. I do wonder when the youngster will decide to fly . . . . Oh cool!!! There they are, and he's trying to fly!!! I'm watching his flying lessons!!! 
Wow, this is so cool! It sounds like he's protesting, so funny, he flaps and "flies" 10-15 feet, feet never fully leaving the water, then settles down, nuzzles mom, whines a bit (short low honks and squeaks), then he starts flapping again. Sometimes mom flies alongside him. Sometimes she just watches. Diane said no one's seen him try to fly yet. And I get to watch it! They've not been this noisy since I arrived. This must be an important day to them. The thing with loons is, they're really big birds, can be several feet long. And their bones are really dense, which is great for when they want to dive under to catch a fish. But they are too heavy to be able to take off flying from land. Diane said that once they leave the nest after the baby gets large enough, they stay on the water and don’t return to land, until time to nest again the next year. This is so cool! I'll be spending tomorrow night in Bar Harbor, maybe they'll follow me over.
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| Appalachian Trail at Daicy |
I decide to spend my last day hiking, rather sauntering a trail in the woods. Diane puts up a weather report on a white board each morning. Today it indicates that it is scheduled to rain by afternoon, so I know I need to head out. I leave the campground by 9:30. I decide to saunter along the Appalachian Trail as it heads south from Daicy Pond. This trail parallels the Nesowadnehunk Stream, or the Sahdahunk as I now know it, through deep forest of hemlock and spruce.
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| AT at Daicy |
The early part of the trail runs through areas so wet that the beam "bridges" are in place. It then becomes a rather flat trail carpeted in pine needles. At one point I hear rain falling, though I don’t appear to be getting wet. I realize that what I am hearing is actually the sound of needles falling from the evergreens. I pass a gorgeous boulder that has a tree growing entwined upon it. Then I saunter down a path lined with 6 foot tall hemlocks. I do love this terrain.
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| Little Niagara Falls |
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| At Little Niagara Falls |
I access the Nesowadnehunk at the Tote Dam, which appears to be a natural as opposed to man-made dam. Then I come upon Little Niagara Falls. The area around these falls is quite pretty. I walk out on white boulders which are strewn with orange needles from the pines. Across the stream colorful hardwoods line the bank. Just downstream I then find Big Niagara Falls. Here I can stand on the boulders that make up the falls, watching the water coming rushing down the rocks toward me. The spray from the falls is intense, the air cool, and the water thunders around me. I would normally sit for a while in this spot. But I am concerned about rain and decide to head back.
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| Big Niagara Falls Nesowadnehunk Stream |
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| Big Niagara Falls |
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| AT at Daicy heading North |
When I reach the trailhead, instead of stopping I decided to head in the opposite direction for a bit. The Appalachian Trail heads north from here, eventually to Katahdin Stream Campground and Mt. Katahdin, where I hiked yesterday. The trail takes me down to Daicy Pond, through stands of pines and blueberry bushes, then along the shoreline for a bit. I hike for about half a mile, then turn back. I think perhaps I’ll head out to some of the more hidden ponds that are just off the road, see if I can find any moose. I stop at the side of the Tote Road and take the trail to Tracey Pond Outlet, then on to Elbow Pond Outlet. This is an easy trail, fairly flat, about a half mile walk one way. The most interesting part of this hike is the "bridge" over Elbow Pond Outlet - part of the bridge is actually a rotting log. I don’t find any moose, so I head on.
Trail over Tracy Pond Outlet
The song of the waters is audible to every ear, but there is other music in these hills, by no means audible to all. To hear even a few notes of it, you must first live here for a long time, and then you must know the speech of hills and rivers. Then of a still night, when the campfire is low and the Pleiades have climbed over the rimrocks , sit quietly and listen for a wolf to howl, and think hard of everything you have seen and tried to understand. Then you may hear it - a vast pulsing harmony - its score inscribed on a thousand hills, its notes the lives and deaths of plants and animals, its rhythms spanning the seconds and the centuries. ~~ Aldo Leopold
I decide I will swing by Stump Pond, as my e-mails have not "flown off" just yet, see if I can catch a signal. As I sit in my car in the Stump Pond parking lot, I realize that there is a person dashing across the road to the Pond. That is most definitely a clue. I grab my camera and follow him, and am rewarded by an up close view of a cow moose munching grasses from the pond. My fellow watchers include a couple of photographers and 4 young people from the Seattle area who talk quietly but excitedly about the scene when the cow came crashing down the hillside behind them, followed by a bull who seemed more interested in her than she in him. The cow headed on into the pond while the bull made his way into the bushes. This is a different group than the one from yesterday. This group is quiet, reverent, awed by our closeness to the animal. We all talk quietly for a bit, occasional shutters clicking. I head back to the car when the rain begins.
I return to the cabin and pack up all I can, wanting to get the car loaded as much as possible before the heavy rains begin. Then I sit before the fire, one last evening of leisure reading before I have to leave. The rain turns into a very fierce storm, strongest since I've been here. The wind whistles around the cabin and under the eaves, actually blowing the back door open at one point. Big waves are crashing onto the shore, which is just fifteen feet away from the back steps. But my fire is warm, the cabin is cozy, and it feels like the perfect last night here. I am satisfied. It has been a very good week.
Donna
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