Maine Woods

On the 31st of August 1846, Thoreau left Concord for Bangor and the backwoods of Maine, in what would become the first of his three famous journeys. His three essays talk about the natural almost primeval beauty of Maine's backwoods and its glorious Mount Ktaadn. He wrote

It is a country full of evergreen trees, of mossy silver birches and watery maples, the ground dotted with insipid small, red berries, and strewn with damp and moss-grown rocks,—a country diversified with innumerable lakes and rapid streams, peopled with trout and various species of leucisci, with salmon, shad, and pickerel, and other fishes; the forest resounding at rare intervals with the note of the chickadee, the blue jay, and the woodpecker, the scream of the fish hawk and the eagle, the laugh of the loon, and the whistle of ducks along the solitary streams; at night, with the hooting of owls and howling of wolves; in summer, swarming with myriads of black flies and mosquitoes, more formidable than wolves to the white man. Such is the home of the moose, the bear, the caribou, the wolf, the beaver, and the Indian. Who shall describe the inexpressible tenderness and immortal life of the grim forest, where Nature, though it be midwinter, is ever in her spring, where the moss-grown and decaying trees are not old, but seem to enjoy a perpetual youth; and blissful, innocent Nature, like a serene infant, is too happy to make a noise, except by a few tinkling, lisping birds and trickling rills? What a place to live, what a place to die and be buried in.

These  essays inspired the Hudson school painters to travel, see their country and capture the beauty for posterity.

Edwin Church's Ktaadn and Maine Woods (1853)

I have been reading and re-reading Thoreau for more than a decade now and seeing this painting last thanksgiving gave me a gentle nudge to plan a trip to Maine, although I knew fully well that a lot has changed in the 150 years since Thoreau's trips. However, I didn't follow his footsteps and retrace his journey - I will not put myself in a canoe of my own volition! (Watch this video from the Penobscot Indians who retraced this journey and set the record straight). Instead, I decided Acadia National Park could give me a taste of Maine's beauty, so that's where we went.

Acadia is famous for a lot of things:

• Only national park in New England
• Has the tallest mountain on the Atlantic Coast (Cadillac Mountain)
• Is the first place in the US to see sunrise
• The park was created entirely from private donations of land and it is still the case - all land that comes under the park has to be donated
• The lighthouses 
• Puffins!

The place was packed and so we made full use of the shuttle system. We didn't do the two popular hikes - the precipice and beehive, both famous for their ladders. One was closed for the peregrine falcon nesting season and even if it was open we decided not to do it because of my crippling fear of heights and my daughter is also not too crazy about heights.

We spent 4 days in Acadia and couldn't get a reservation for the sunrise drive to Cadillac mountain for any of these days. These are so popular and are sold out faster than tickets to a Radiohead concert! Instead we did a drive up to Cadillac Mountain the first afternoon and the vistas were breathtaking. Reminded us of Torrey Pines/ Ocean Beach except this was the Atlantic and not the Pacific.

View from Cadillac Mountain

We did the Great Head trail from Sand Beach which is probably the most popular spot in the park because of the access to the beach. The hike hugged the coastline giving us more views of the ocean and brought us back to the beach. We heard nuthatches, green-throated black warblers and saw downy woodpeckers on the way down.

 

We wrapped up the day with a walk along the coast but it was not very pleasant as it was packed with people and we saw more cars than the coast.

The next day our plan was to hike to Bubble Rock and connect to Jordan pond, but a mix up led us to be dropped off by the shuttle at the Pemetic Mountain trail head. But this turned out to be the best thing that happened to us! Until we did this hike we didn't feel like we were in a national park as the crowds were a bit much. As we hiked up the Pemetic mountain from Bubble pond we did not meet any other hiker until we reached the summit. Apparently this route was not a popular one as it involved a lot of scrambling in the woods, a steady ascent with not many views. Perfect for us! We didn't really know where we were going or have a specific plan other than - let's reach the summit and see if it connects us to another trail.

Bubble Pond - start of Pemetic trail

One of the few views on the trail coming up from Bubble Pond

 When we reached the summit we were in for a treat as the view was just breathtaking! We've hiked up Mount San Jacinto three times and while the hike itself was the most challenging I've ever done I didn't care much for the views from the top. Pemetic Mountain was the opposite, the hike was not nearly as challenging but the views were spectacular.

Summit

Here we met other hikers who came up from Jordan pond. They told us that it was a gradual ascent with a lot of views of the coastline and no scrambling. So we decided we will go down that trail as we didn't want to scramble on the way down. This was a very rewarding hike down and the views exceeded expectations.

Going down from Pemetic Mt. summit to Jordan Pond

Jordan pond was popular with the crowds but we still managed to find peace and quiet thanks to our hike, except for frequent interruptions from the Bullfrog

Jordan Pond

Bullfrogs

I know they are pests everywhere else and harm many indigenous species, but here in the Eastern US they were a sight to behold. Until then we had only heard his booming voice, we finally caught sight of him in Jordan pond.

The Hudson school had revealed the beauty of Mount Desert Island (on which stands Acadia NP) that during the 1850s it became very popular with folks from New England and after the civil war many more started pouring into these locations to take in the natural beauty. Soon enough the wealthy built mansions along the coast of Maine and started throwing their famous parties which also included walking tours of the woods. Now most of the mansions are gone and many of the wealthy donated their land to form the basis of the national park. A lot of the original woods are gone except for one pocket of old growth forest, but since the creation of the park there are no longer any sheep on the islands and the forests are slowly recovering.

For our last day in Maine our daughter recommended we do a Pelagic birding tour and so that's what we did. We got on a boat and went looking for puffins, murres, and razorbills off the coast of Maine. This turned out to be a terrific idea! The guides on the boat were locals, born and raised near Bar Harbor and knew so much about the park - both the natural and cultural history. They also talked a lot about the lobster fisheries in Maine and how tightly regulated they were. The lobstermen took a lot of care to make sure the lobsters were not driven to extinction and managed the fishing quotas and regulations collectively to ensure the health of the ocean and its inhabitants. This was very heartening to hear.

We saw a lot of wildlife off the coast of Maine. The puffins were well known to us thanks to the Audubon webcam - Project Puffin so I was thrilled to see them in person.
 

Mola Mola or Sunfish

Atlantic Puffins

Lighthouse on Eggrock

Murre

That afternoon we drove out to Schoodic point to see the mainland side of Acadia and that wrapped up our trip to Maine! When I look back on the trip, the theme seems to be regeneration. As a family we needed this trip to rejuvenate our spirits after the pandemic. But I was also heartened to see how much progress has been made since the 1900s in terms of preserving nature through our national park system. Many of the islands that were once grazed down by sheep are now sporting hundred year old trees and hosting bald eagles and other creatures. Thoreau bemoaned the fact that our needs meant that the value of a pine was estimated by its "use." In The Maine Woods he says

There is a higher law affecting our relation to pines as well as to men. A pine cut down, a dead pine, is no more a pine than a dead human carcass is a man. Can he who has discovered only some of the values of whalebone and whale oil be said to have discovered the true use of the whale? Can he who slays the elephant for his ivory be said to have “seen the elephant”? These are petty and accidental uses; just as if a stronger race were to kill us in order to make buttons and flageolets of our bones; for everything may serve a lower as well as a higher use. Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.

I hope to walk away from the woods of Maine keeping in mind the "higher uses" of all forms of life even when walking in my own backyard.

NY State: Niagara, Ithaca/ Finger Lakes

Our trip to the East coast started off with a visit to the Niagara which surprisingly wasn't crowded. I was expecting to be standing in hour long lines but it looks like we missed the holiday crowd by a day and it was much more pleasant than I expected. I was eagerly waiting to see my daughter's reactions and she summed it up in one phrase "it doesn't feel real." A falls of this magnitude, according to her, should demand more from the visitor. She believes that one had to earn the falls by hiking through woods and mountains and not just walk into it by standing in line or riding a boat as though it was a ride in Disneyland. Niagara felt too commercial and left her wanting although she was glad to have seen it and experienced the force of the Cave of the Winds but we were all itching to hit the Finger lakes region of upstate NY.

 

 It took Odysseus ten years to return to Ithaca. It took me a little over twenty to get there.The names of the places takes you back in time and one cannot help but think about the Haudenosaunee who have lent their names to these lands and the lakes specifically the Cayugas and Seneca - the two lakes around which we spent most of our time. I don't want to sound like I am placing the Iroquois in the past, as they are a living breathing civilization very much alive amidst us and to whom we owe not just a land acknowledgement but also the concept of American liberty/ justice/ constitution. Reading books like Braiding Sweetgrass, The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee, Covered with Night, and the oldie Crucible of War gave me a bit of a background and I am still learning more. However, I am not remotely qualified to write about Native America other than saying that as I walked along these trails and gorges I was more mindful of where I was treading and tried to do it lightly with gratitude in my heart. 

Watkins Glen:

This is considered the most beautiful state park in all of NY. I don't dispute that. You hit 19 waterfalls in  1.5 miles and the gorges carved by water are just spectacular. July meant that the water flow was not at its peak, however for those coming from drought-stricken SoCal this was heaven! We parked in an upper parking lot and so took the Indian trail down and climbed back up the Gorge Trail so that we could always face the water on our way up.

 

Taughanock Falls:

The highest falls in the US (higher than even Niagara), the Taughanock was high on my list, but very low on water unfortunately. Still the hike was completely worth it and we did both the Gorge trail and the Rim trail (up the South, down the North). By doing the rim trail we beat the crowds and also got a terrific view of the upper falls which had a bit more water.

                                                                            

The Upper Falls

View from the North Rim Trail

 

I saw Turkey Vultures everywhere roosting at the top of the cliffs and even heard Peregrines but as I didn't trust my ears I didn't look for them. Later, my daughter who was birding around this area with the Cornell Lab told me that they saw Peregrines in this region! However, the bird that captured my heart in this entire trip was the Red-Eyed Vireo - did not see it once but the woods were ringing with its song and by the end of the trip this was the one bird song I learned to identify with confidence.

Buttermilk Falls:

Once again the water in the falls was just a trickle and therefore did not do justice to the name. However, the hike was still beautiful and walking in the woods with just bird song from the elusive vireo was enough to fill my cup.

That wrapped up the upstate NY leg of our trip. We made one stop at New Paltz to visit family and went on a walk along the historic Huguenot Street. We only got a glimpse of the Catskills from a distance.

 

There is so much beauty and history in NY state and I came away refreshed with all the time spent in the woods. I can only imagine how beautiful it would be during other seasons and I hope that unlike Odysseus I will be back someday real soon.

Cornell's Lab of Ornithology

 This July our daughter was picked for the Lab of Ornithology's Young Birder Event. She was first notified that she was selected as a young birder back in 2019 when she was still in Middle school, only to receive an email an hour later that it was an error and she was only on the wait list as an 'alternate'. Needless to say we were a bit disappointed. The next time around the pandemic intervened and the lab had to postpone its event for a couple of years. Third time was the charm and she finally attended the event this year and it was fabulous! This also gave me an opportunity to visit Sapsucker woods which I've only watched on feedercam for many years!

 

The lab is an amazing resource for anyone interested in birds and 8 years back my daughter and i got started on our birding by watching many of their educational videos. One thing led to another and we were doing feederwatch regularly, taking lessons from the lab, participating in Backyard Bird counts, and Merlin and eBird have become our favorite app on our smartphones.

As part of the event, parents were invited to attend the keynote by the lab's director Ian Owens. I hope the Lab actually recorded his keynote and will publish it widely as it was truly inspirational! I was so glad my daughter got to hear him and I wish more people will hear his message as it was filled with realism and optimism. There were two key messages that I heard that resonated with me and hopefully with my daughter

1) The problems of the world are too big that they cannot be solved by one person or even one type of person. At the lab they bring together people with a wide range of skills - birders of course, but more than that they needed biologists, conservationists, computer scientists, story tellers, educators, and communicators. There is a role for everyone and the best ideas come from working together across disciplines.

2) Bending the curve - this was his most important message to the youth in attendance. There is still time to reverse the loss of biodiversity! Very often we hear in the news that it is already too late w.r.t climate change. While it is important to raise the alarm call it is also important to show that there is a path forward and not all is lost. If there is no hope for the future why do we bother telling our kids that they can make a difference! We need to get more people excited about the future and bring them into the fold so we can figure out solutions for the planet. Ian Owens and the Lab offered that vision. In a time when the world seems to be polarized between climate apathy and climate anxiety, even I needed to hear this talk to feel hopeful about the future.

 

 

As I walked through Sapsucker woods I thought of the past 8 years when my daughter's forays into birding got me hooked as her co-traveler. I know it is time for our paths to diverge and I don't know what lies ahead for her as she starts thinking about college this year, but coming here at this time was a timely boost of confidence and enthusiasm for her. She said that holding the snowy owl specimen in her hand was deeply moving and exhilarating at the same time. 

 

The famous woods around Ithaca were once leveled down completely as farmlands but have now become wild again in the past 100 years. It's not too late... yet and I hope she keeps this note of optimism and hope in her heart as she looks ahead to the future.