A bit of hiking

Our last two days at ANP we wanted to do some hiking on the mountains. Unfortunately Tuesday dawned foggy so we could not make an early start. With the fog still heavy at 11:00 we took off anyhow. Our first hike was up to the Bubble Rock. This is a very large boulder situated on a cliff near the top of one of the Bubble hills. The climb was relatively easy with only a few places that were a stretch for my short legs. After reaching to summit we had to climb down over the rock face to locate the boulder. It really is amazing to see this huge rock just balance there on the edge of cliff. According to the geologist the bubble rock is an erratic rock, meaning it does not conform to the local types of rock. They estimate it was carried to this location over 50 miles by a glacier.

Even though it was getting late in the after noon, the fog still had not lifted. Despite the fog we did attempt a second hike. This one was on Gorham Mountain, supposedly a moderate climb. Somehow we missed the main trail and end up on a secondary over large chunks of rock. After getting over a few of these we retreated back to the bottom of the mountain and as it was now nearly 5 PM and still foggy we went back to the RV.

Wednesday was a much better day for a hike. The sun was bright and it was not too hot, this time we opted for a Carriage Trail. The Carriage Trails at ANP were designed, built and paid for by John D. Rockefeller, JR. He did not like all the automobiles in the park and wanted roads to drive by carriage or horseback. Thus the donation. The trails today are used for bicycles, hiking, horseback riding and some carriage. They provided a much easier hike for us. We chose a trail with 3 of the many uniques bridges on the Carriage Trails. We traveled about 3.5 miles up the side of Parkman Mountain. There was little wildlife other than a few frogs, dragonflies, a falcon and one nasty mosquito that bit me 3 times. The fauna consisted of mostly spruce trees, some truly huge, a few birch, beautiful mosses and lichen and strawberry and blueberry plants.