I feel a little bit like I did when I was in college and worked the summers in Yellowstone. Even though I was excited and looking forward to what lay ahead, I still felt sad about leaving a place of natural beauty, saying good-bye to the friends I had met, and feeling nostalgic about all the wonderful adventures we had. It is hard to leave Newfoundland.
The ferry leaves Port aux Basques for North Sydney, Nova Scotia, at 11:45 pm. We had to leave our campground by 2 pm and, on the advice of the campground owner, we drove to Port aux Basques and parked in the parking lot of the Newfoundland Labrador Information Center, about 2 km from the ferry. We did some work on our trip to Prince Edward Island, in two weeks, fixed and ate our dinner, and at 7:00 we drove to the ferry terminal. There the agricultural inspectors took our potatoes, to save the rest of the potatoes in Canada from blight, and we got into line #10. Here we are in line, with four RVs ahead of us. This is sure different from our trip five weeks ago when there were three long lines of RVs. Of course, it is still early, you only have to be in line by 9:45 pm.
Yesterday's blog ended with a picture of a hanging glacial valley about five miles from our campground. We had hoped to take the Starlight Trail yesterday, to the top of the mountain, but as usual, we ran out of time. But when we got up this morning, and we had until 2 pm to check out, Frederick suggested that we get an early start and hike the Starlight Trail.
The Starlight Trail, five miles from our campground, is only 9 km but it has an elevation gain of 1500 feet. It is listed in the literature as "strenuous".
The trailhead at 8:55 am.
Part of the trail was through this spectacular grove of aspens (I think).
Elevation at about 20 minutes into the hike.
30 minutes into the hike we can now see the Gulf of St. Lawrence on the horizon and the Little Codroy River in the mid-range.
50 minutes into the hike we have gone around the back of the mountain and now have a view of some of the hanging glacial valleys.
A little further along this snowfield and falls comes into view.
The prize at 1 hour is the hanging glacial valley with snowfield and falls that feeds Campbell Pond.
A few steps around the top of the mountain and the view to the southwest - incredible!
We think we found a Dorset Paleoeskimo campsite at the top.
No comments:
Post a Comment