BLOG - Third Day Trip To NH (Chipmunks & Waterfalls)

    We set out early this morning knowing we were going to NH but not really sure what hikes we wanted to do. I’ve found so many off the beaten path places that look promising we knew we wouldn’t have nearly enough time to even scratch the surface. With yesterday’s heavy rain we figured the waterfalls would be impressive and knew we had to visit a couple. By the time we hit Gorham we both needed to find a bathroom so we made our way down to the Pinkham Notch visitor center at the base of Mt Washington.

    While in the area we decided to check out Thompson Falls. A while back I came across an old painting of the falls and have been wanting to see them in real life ever since. We started at the Wildcat Mountain parking area and followed the mostly flat trail out to the falls where along the way we got to see a daring chipmunk leap from one boulder to another across a stream. The waterfall was amazing, I can’t believe I’ve never been there before considering the ease of the trail and its short distance to the road. The rain really made the river swell, most of the pictures I’ve seen of Thompson Falls weren’t nearly as spectacular as  we saw today.

    I decided to cross the brook to get a view of the falls from the other side, where Benjamin Champney had done his painting from. With the water level being higher than normal I wasn’t able to rock hop my way across but did find a convenient log downstream that I successfully tight roped across. Above the falls there were some more neat little cascades, especially with the high water levels. There was even a small side brook that fell between two boulders creating a sort of cave that made for some awesome pictures.

    Down the road a ways we turned off in Jackson to check out the roadside falls along the Ellis River. I also knew there was an underground mine tunnel in the area that’s on my list of places to find. I hadn’t anticipated searching for the mine so didn’t have a detailed map of the area but figured I could pull it up on Google Earth since it was already loaded, just to a different part of the map. And of course the map was loaded to a point right before the mine so it was too blurry to make anything out. I went searching anyway and quickly found a maintained trail through the woods presumably made by the locals. It lead past some clear signs of old civilization. There was what appeared to be an old stone well surrounded by small stone structures that looked like they once housed natural spring water.

I almost missed it but there was also a wooden structure with a stone foundation. I took some pictures of the inside but it was too muddy to go in. After scouring the hillsides with no signs of the abandoned mine I gave up my search. Now that I can view the map I can see I was right around the corner from where the mine should be located, maybe 100 feet or so. I’ll definitely be going back to search for this one again.

    Starving, we cut across the Bear Notch Rd up to the Kancamagus Highway and made it to Lincoln just before White Mountain Bagel closed at 3:00. Jaime got her favorite sandwich there while I got a Souvlaki from GH Pizza. The last two times we went I got one to take home and eat cold so I wanted to have a warm one, the way it was meant to be.

We went to my favorite picnic spot at Fay Forest along the river to eat our delicious meals and were visited by a chipmunk and then a red squirrel, both who posed for pictures. The chipmunk got so close I could have reached out and touched him, at one point we thought he was going to climb up Jaime’s leg. I think if I had food he actually wanted he would have eaten it right out of my hand. And as soon as the chipmunk left, a red squirrel took his place, getting close but not nearly as close as the chipmunk. I love little tree rodents so it was an excellent and very entertaining lunch.

    From there we headed into Kinsman Notch so I could check out another waterfall just a mile or two up the road from Waternomee Brook which we explored a couple weeks ago during drier weather. I knew the falls would be raging today and wanted to check them out. We’d been to Clough Mine Brook one other time last Spring but only took a couple pictures from the pull off. This time I wanted to follow the brook up to some rock slabs known by bushwhackers as the Waternomee Waterslides.

    The brook was incredible with one cascade after another, zigzagging their way down the mountainside. Most weren’t huge, maybe six foot drops or slides but they were all spectacular in their own way, certainly worth the trip, I even got to see one of them through a small cave. Then came an amazing ‘z’ shaped waterslide that cut through a ledge, unfortunately some of the view was blocked by a recently fallen tree, but man was this one something special. I figured I’d turn around here but could see some light up ahead and decided to go a little further. There were quite a few blowdowns along the brook as the terrain got more treacherous the higher I got, erosion flanked the narrow streambed making travel a little more difficult. I kept telling myself I’d turn around at the next cascade, hoping to find something noteworthy to turn around at, the peeing tree would work. With the high water levels, the brook came pouring over a rock that a large funny looking tree was growing out of. I’d turn around at the tree.

    And there they were, the Waternomee Waterslides, pouring down a hundred foot ledge in the open sunlight, splashing into the small pool below the slanted wall of rock. I made it. Seeing something like that is awe inspiring when its on a path but when you stumble across it along a trail-less brook its something entirely different. To think that a waterfall this size doesn’t have a path to it is just insane. It literally took my breath away. Might have found a cool rock at the bottom of the falls that I would add to the collection of stones I planned on bringing back. I’ve been good lately but the large lumpy red rock was something I just had to have.

    I carefully made my way up the rock slab, trying my best to avoid the trickles of water that strayed away from the main fall. The view opened up as I got higher, closing in on the cascades at the top of the waterslide. It reminded me of the Basin Cascade Trail where the water just keeps tumbling down flat rock ledges with no real end in sight. I stopped just shy of the top, knowing I would see something above that would beg me to continue on. But I was gone long enough and very slowly made my way down the dry portion of the waterslide, cutting across it side to side to alleviate some of the steepness.

 

 I grabbed my red rock at the bottom and started my descent. Down a little further I stopped to examine my other cache of rocks, deciding to leave the two smaller ones behind and only grab one from that stash. So with a ten pound rock in each hand I carefully made my way down, opting to bushwhack rather than rock hop in order to save time. I took a step, no different from any other step I’d taken, only this time my foot didn’t land on solid ground. A thin layer of soil covered a gap between rocks and my entire leg disappeared into the forest floor. My outer thigh smashed into a rock, stopping my leg from going in any further. My natural instinct was to pull it out as fast as I could just in case there was an animal in the now exposed hole that wanted to eat me, but I could tell by the pressure that yanking it out would break a bone or two. I was able to turn my leg and pull it out with nothing more than some scratches and bruising, that could have been a lot worse. I did manage to hold onto both of my rocks and my bladder, didn’t even come close to peeing myself. Checked the backside, yep, good there as well, and I carried on, knowing that my knee wouldn’t be feeling too good come morning. I was right but it wasn’t that bad all things considered. I turned back after a few steps to photograph the hole and almost couldn’t find it, you would never suspect it was there, the ground looks perfectly normal. The pitfalls of bushwhacking.

    I knew that was about it for me for the day, it was starting to get late anyway. We checked out the next pull off just a stone’s throw down the road which had a neat waterfall coming down beside an enormous boulder with caves in it. There’s another stream just a few feet away as well, both of which I plan on exploring at some point, a kind of two for one deal. The area was too broad and dark for the pictures to really come out though, but I have a feeling there’ll be some interesting cascades up higher. I haven’t been disappointed by Kinsman Notch yet.

    Closer to town we stopped at a pull off we’d noticed last time and went down to check it out. The ledges and giant boulders offered no safe way down to the stream, until I noticed a cave. Between the ledge and a boulder was a passageway to the stream, a fifteen foot cave that lead right down to the water. Me being me, I had to crawl through it, winding up at a small rocky beach on the shore of the river. The cave was made up of an awesome looking quartz that really made me wish I had my chisel and hammer with me. Its not often you get to crawl through a cave that leads down to a river. It was something straight out of Lost River which is fitting because its actually on the Lost River, just a few miles downstream.

    We gassed up and made our way back over the Kancamagus, stopping at Sabaday Falls along the way. When we stopped there a month ago it was raining and we were exhausted after a long day so Jaime didn’t go to the falls. This time she was determined and made it without any trouble. We got some cool pictures, she even accidentally found a setting on the camera that will really come in handy, the colors are so much more vivid now. We were even able to accurately capture how green the pool below the falls was.

Jaime requested we go back down Bear Notch Road the way we’d come so we could stop at the view points along the way since we didn’t have time on our way through before.

   The goal was to make it out of NH before dark due to some construction that makes driving at night rather difficult but we were hungry and decided to stop at our favorite Dairy Queen. Sometimes we’ll have a craving for Dairy Queen, not the three we have here though, specifically the one in Bartlett or North Conway. I washed up my leg in the bathroom which burned like hell but the cut wasn’t too bad, I did notice I was starting to limp though. I could feel my knee hyper extending as it slipped into the hole but somehow contorted myself to stop it before too much damage was done. We ate in the lower parking lot looking over the lamps and picnic table before starting our journey home.

The section of road that was all torn up and under construction was horrible but the rest of the trip wasn’t bad, except for the fact that we were both dead tired. Jaime was asleep before I even hopped in the shower. I was out not long after. Another terrific day in the mountains that feel more like home than home does.

BLOG - Second NH Day Trip (Noble Falls)

    Yesterday was supposed to be gorgeous, and this time it actually was, so we decided to make a day trip to NH. We’d been planning on going back since a few weeks ago when two of the places we wanted to eat at were closed for the day. So we got up early and left the house around 7:00. We took the same route as last time to Gorham which takes just over three hours, neither of our stomachs were doing too good so we had to stop for emergency pooping along the way.

    We got some Gatorade at the Gorham Walmart and attempted to find Alpine Cascades but came up empty handed. I know where it is on the map despite its lack of a trail but finding the best way to it is what’s difficult. We can walk along an old railroad bed turned ATV trail if we have to but it's in the direct sunlight for over a mile plus it's all on crushed gravel and dirt which my ankle doesn’t appreciate. I thought I found a more direct, wooded route but we couldn’t find the road we were looking for because there were no road signs. We were okay with that because it was really freakin’ hot and being out in the open sun wasn’t sounding too appealing.

    So we moved on to Littleton to get Jaime’s birthday fudge since they were closed by the time we got there last time. We got a pound and a half which should last us awhile. I went to a consignment shop and a thrift store but the antique place I really wanted to go to wasn’t open, they have old maps and post cards which is actually the best way to find out about abandoned trails.

    From there we went to Lincoln to get lunch at White Mountain Bagel. They’re a bagel place that makes amazing sandwiches with so much meat you can barely fit it in your mouth. Jaime of course told me that I shouldn’t have a problem with it because I love putting big meat in my mouth. We took them to the Fay Wayside picnic area to eat along the river, one of our favorite places to have a picnic.
 

    Not wanting to stray too far from Lincoln since we were determined to eat at Black Mountain Burger for supper, we’d decided on searching for a waterfall on Cannon Mountain but wanted something smaller first while digesting our delicious bagel sandwiches. Since Jaime didn’t go up Waternomee Brook with me a year ago she wanted to do that. It appears to be nothing more than a random brook that passes under the road but just a short ways up are actually a number of stunning cascades. Of course they were much better when I did them in the Spring of last year but it was still fun as hell. Jaime enjoyed climbing up the rocks of the steep brook. The black flies were horrible but that’s to be expected this time of year.

    When I last visited the brook it would have been impossible to climb up it due to the insane amount of water. This time it was low enough to climb up right alongside the falls. I got to scratch another item off my bucket list by sticking my head under a waterfall to cool off. I’ve always wanted to but never really had the right opportunity or safe place to do it. It was as refreshing as I’d always imagined it to be. On our way back down I found a beautiful quartz rock by the waterfall and got some pictures of it posed beneath the fall before taking it home, my only rock of the trip. See, I’m doing much better, only one. The crystals in it are so thick they look like glass.

    The main fall which slides down a steep rock for about thirty feet wasn’t nearly as intense as it had been last time but that gave me the opportunity to explore. I actually got to go up the ledges that the water covered in the Spring which was pretty cool, there was even a view from the top. The brook continues on up the side of Waternomee Mountain but we stopped there since the water level was so low, but I’ll be traveling up it further next Spring. While I was exploring Jaime took off her shoes and stuck her feet in the pool below the falls and relaxed before making our descent.

    It was starting to get late so we scrapped the idea of searching for an abandoned mine and headed for Cannon Mountain. What was once an extensive bushwhack to a recently rediscovered waterfall  has turned into a short hike along a trail after a photographer realized the locals had a path leading to the forgotten Nobel Falls. The directions were right, you would never imagine there was a maintained path there. I think it's used by skiers during the winter months but it makes for an excellent hiking trail that leads directly to the falls.

    Noble Falls, now known as Bridesmaid Falls to the backcountry skiers, has got to be one of the most majestic I have ever seen. The fact it isn’t on any maps or trail guides is astonishing. Even in the low water it was incredible. Out of nowhere the small stream pours over an enormous rock cliff. The ledge is so high its not really possible to capture it all in a picture. Not only that, there’s actually two waterfalls, one on each end of the cliff. I got to touch it, both of them, but wasn’t able to wet my head like I did at Waternomee. The sandy pool at the bottom would be perfect to splash around in though. I’m still amazed at how incredible Noble Falls is, just wow.

    Through research I’d learned that there was actually another waterfall just a tenth of a mile or so downstream, so downstream I went in search of Plimpton Falls. But first there were some really cool rock formations along the riverbed I had to check out. At one point a slab of rock jutted out over the brook like a plank on a pirate ship. I can’t wait to see these lower falls in the Spring or after a heavy rain.

    Getting down to Plimpton Falls was easier said than done. Tenth of a mile doesn’t sound so bad on paper but when its straight down with no trail whatsoever, it gets a little tricky. I could tell there was something special down there because I stood at the top of it and watched the water disappear over the edge. Using fallen trees and their comrades who had yet to succumb to gravity,  I carefully lowered myself down the steep ravine, catching glimpses of the falls from beside it.

   

    Although not a sheer drop off a ledge like Noble Falls, the water cascaded down steps, one after another after another for what must be a hundred feet or more. Its hard to believe there can be two such unique waterfalls just a few hundred feet from each other with no real trail to them. Its really a shame more people don’t get to see these. The mosquitoes were swarming me so I didn’t stay long but I did manage to get some good pictures of me with the falls using the timer on my camera. Not wanting to leave Jaime waiting I hurried back up the impossibly steep slope. Every step was bringing me back two, sliding down the dead leaves and loose dirt beneath them. So instead I leapt from tree to tree, holding on tight, getting my footing, and then launching myself up to the next one. It worked but man did that tire me out. I think I almost passed out at one point but couldn’t let myself because Jaime was still up ahead of me and if I fell it would have been a long way down. I made it up rather quickly and stopped for a drink, then proceeded to swallow a fly during all my huffing and puffing. I hope he died a slow and painful death for discomfort he caused me.

  

  We certainly earned our supper at Black Mountain Burger, which was delicious like always. I got a new one this time, a Thai burger with peanut slaw on it, it was certainly interesting. Jaime got the Brie and Bacon with maple mayonaise, one of our favorites. The buffalo mac and cheese balls were incredible as well.

    Before heading out we stopped at GH Pizza so I could get a Souvlaki to go which I had tonight after work, my mouth is watering just thinking about it. I also stopped at Price Chopper to see if they had anything good to bring back with me, I only got a package of blueberry muffin tops, the place looked pretty well picked over after the holiday weekend. We ended up leaving town at 8:00, made it down the Kancamagus before it got completely dark, oh and Jaime saw a moose along the way, and were home just after midnight. No rain at all so despite the construction areas on the way back it was smooth sailing, nothing like last time. Jaime even slept a bit on the highway. I wanted to but waited until we got home. Another amazing day that only makes me want to move there more.

TRIP REPORT - Grotto Cave above Beech Hill Pond (Otis, ME)

    This one is a little outside of my usual Acadia or White Mountains explorations but I figured I should post it because it’s a place not many people know about. I love caves so I’m always trying to find any information I can on them and this one is quite elusive. I first read about it on the Northeast caver website but they don’t give any information other than the fact that such a place exists. I was able to find it on a geological website which has since disappeared but they did give its size and a good description of it. Unfortunately they didn’t say how to get there.

    After studying some maps and getting bits of information from the locals I finally figured out where the cave is located. Don’t get your hopes up thinking this is a real cave, its just a talus cave but its pretty cool nonetheless. The geological site referred to it as Grotto Cave and its known by the locals as Glacier Rock or the Bear Caves. It is located on top of Grotto Hill in Otis Maine, just outside of Ellsworth along the southern shore of Beech Hill Pond.

    There is no trail to the cave, or to Grotto Hill for that matter, but there are old jeep roads and atv trails that lead you almost to it. While traveling along Rte 180, also known as the Mariaville Road, almost across the street form Beech Hill School is a dirt road with multiple names. The street sign has it listed as the Gary Moore Rd. Follow it for a quarter of a mile until you reach another road with a row of mail boxes out front, this is the West Shore Rd. Bear right onto the West Shore Rd and follow it for 1.4 miles past a multitude of camps where you’ll come to the Beech Hill Pond boat landing.

    I recommend doing this in the off season or the boat landing will be a popular place with possibly nowhere to park. Walk along the road for a house or two and across the street from 307 you’ll see a small shed with a gravel road beside it that looks like a driveway. The shed is posted as private property and the land might be as well but there is only that one sign, so just be respectful of other people’s property and move across it quickly. Follow the gravel road up past an old tarped over abandoned boat house that was never finished. After the boat house the gravel gives way to grass but remains a wide road not fit for most vehicles. The grassy road brings you uphill for 0.3 mile where you’ll reach the edge of a swamp. The beavers have made quite the home here, submerging the road beneath a few feet of water. You’ll have to tightrope across the beaver dam for a little over a hundred feet.

    Once you’ve made it across the dam and back onto the dry dirt road, you’re going to leave the road and make your way into the woods. They’re quite open and pleasant for bushwhacking despite a couple wet and steep sections. There are multiple atv trails cutting through the woods but your best bet is to just ignore them and make your way uphill, the trails will take you all over the place, eventually bringing you to the summit but in a very roundabout way. Just simply keep going up until you can’t anymore. It’s roughly a 0.3 mile bushwhack up the ridgeline of the hill.

    You’ll find yourself at a small open grassy area at the top. To your right are the ledges overlooking Beech Hill Pond as well as Graham Lake. Be careful around the edge because the cliff is made up of a rather smooth stone and it slopes downward to a pretty big drop off, anywhere between 20 and 40 feet depending on where you’re standing. Beech Hill Pond is the one right in front of you, Graham Lake is to the right. Above Graham Lake you’ll see a ridge of mountains including Peaked, Black, Tunk, Catherine and Schoodic Mountain. Its quite an impressive view that seems to come from out of nowhere.

    Once you’re done taking in the view from Grotto Hill, its time to explore the cave, which is located directly beneath you at the bottom of the rock cliff. The cave is pretty much in the middle of the cliff so it doesn’t matter which way you go to get down. Slightly to your right is a crack in the rock with a few small trees growing out of it that is the most direct way down, its also the most dangerous. If you keep bearing right you’ll find a steep slope going down between two ledges that will take you to the bottom rather quickly but without too much difficulty. There’s even a few small caves along the way that the animals have claimed as their homes.

    Follow the base of the cliff a hundred feet or so to the multiple entrances of Grotto Cave. The first one is a large oval shaped hole in the cliff that apparently had steps leading up to it long ago. Unfortunately those steps are no longer there which makes getting into the cave nearly impossible. The rocks are too smooth to grab onto so there’s nothing to pull yourself up by. If you’re determined to get into that first chamber then I recommend dragging a log to the mouth of the cave and climbing up that. Its only four feet up or so, its only the angle of the ledges that make it difficult.

    The next entrance is just on the other side of the giant slab that’s broken off from the main cliff. It’s a tight squeeze but if you’re willing to crawl through some mud it’ll bring you around the backside of the slab and into the main chamber of the cave. There is also a break in the cliff to your right which also requires some crawling but if you’re small enough you’ll be able to enter the small room and climb up towards the light through a chimney like crevice. My shoulders and hips were too broad to allow me clearance but someone a little smaller could certainly make it through.

    Just past the second entrance is a third one, the easiest to get into. It looks almost like a natural doorway leading into a hall. The hallway is a few feet wide and tall enough to comfortably stand up in. It leads to an open room with sunlight pouring in, directly beneath the ledges you were standing on earlier. There’s really no need for flashlights unless you plan on squeezing up through the chimney, plenty of sunlight finds its way in between the fallen boulders.

    If you climb up the jumble of rocks you’ll find yourself at the top of the dark chimney crevice, where again if you’re small enough, you could climb down through the chimney. You can also make your way onto the top of the flat boulder in front of you and peer down into the main entrance of the cave but be careful because it’s a long drop down.

    Although not a true cave, just a huge pile of large talus, Grotto Cave is a really cool experience. The journey is worth it just to see the expansive view from the top of Grotto Hill. With no hiking trail to it, its really only seen by locals out riding the atv trails, and most of them don’t realize there’s a cave beneath the cliff. I think what makes the crevices so impressive is the fact that they’re not comprised of small boulders but rather huge chunks of the cliff that dislodged over time, breaking away from the main ledge but not crumbling into your average rockslide found beneath unstable rock cliffs. The enormous slabs have formed some interesting caves that are certainly worth checking out if you’re ever in the Ellsworth/Otis/Mariaville area.

BLOG - Exploring Grotto Cave in Otis Maine

    Yesterday was Jaime’s birthday so today continued her four day celebration. We got together with her father for lobsters and some exploration. A few years ago I read about a cave near his house, where Jaime grew up, but he had never heard of it. He had been to the area it was located though, in fact right on top of it but never knew there was a cave down below. I copied the information into a word document which is good because the geological website it was featured on appears to be gone. With no real directions on how to get there I did some research on Google Earth and got a pretty good idea where to start. Today was the day to begin the search.

    With my research and Jaime’s dad’s knowledge of the area, as well as a couple firsthand accounts he’d heard from local friends, we knew we were heading in the right direction. Boy is it nice to do these sorts of things with a local, we parked at the boat launch and Dicky knew the guy who was washing his truck and we got some directions from him which pretty much matched up to what I had gathered from my research. He referred to the cave as ‘the bear caves’. So we headed up a gravel road that looked like nothing more than a driveway. He told us we’d get a little wet by the swamp this time of year which seemed about right because I knew we had to follow the road to the edge of a swamp before cutting uphill through the trees.

    Sure enough we came to the swamp which was dammed up pretty good by beavers. The road was under a few feet of water with the dam running right along the side of it. We skirted around the first dam, crossing a small brook, but came to another much longer dam that we couldn’t easily walk around. So we tight roped a hundred feet or so across it. We got a little wet but no one fell in. The dam brought us up close and personal with the beaver hut but there was no activity.

    On the other side of the dam we made our way into the woods and off the muddy jeep road. All we knew was that we needed to get to the top of the hill so we made our way up, crossing multiple atv trails along the way. Luckily it was kind of chilly today which prevented the sweat from pouring as we wandered through the woods, eventually making it to the top of the ridge. We followed the ridgeline for a couple minutes before spotting a clearing up ahead. Jaime and I stopped to watch a couple of snakes sun bathing while Dicky made his way through the clearing, yelling back that we’d made it to the top and there was one hell of a view.

    When he was a kid he’d been camping there before, right on top of the hill with a beautiful view looking out over Beech Hill Pond and Graham Lake as well as a few ridgelines of nearby mountains. We hadn’t expected such a spectacular view, figuring trees would surely obscure it, but there was a long ledge we were standing on that towered over most of the trees. We knew we were on top of the cave, we just needed a way down. A safe way down, the way I found was direct but something only a fool would do. Yes I would have done it but opted to find a safer way everyone felt comfortable with.

    While traveling along the band of ledges looking for a safe way down I spotted a hole in the cliff, one of the chimney entrances into the cave I had read about. We found it. Right around here we found a good way down that brought us beside a small cave in the ledges where we assume a porcupine lived, the entire entrance to it was covered with porcupine poop, not even an inch of ground being visible. The cliffs we were just on top of were a lot higher up than we thought, between 30 and 40 feet. We were right in our decision to not get too close to the edge.

    Following the base of the cliff we came to the multiple entrances to the cave I had read about. The main entrance no longer had any steps leading up to it, just an old rotted log that was no longer useable. The cliff walls were too smooth for me to get a good enough grip to climb my way into the crevice so we carried on, finding other ways in. Everything was a little wet from the recent rain but we found a nice dry opening that required a little climbing but no crawling in the mud. That entrance ended up being the only one we could really get into but it was pretty cool.

     I did some more climbing and made it into another chamber but couldn’t squeeze my broad shoulders down into a tight squeeze that lead to another portion of the cave. I explored a bit, figuring out where the different cracks and crevices lead to. It’s a neat little talus cave system, nothing I would consider to be a real cave though. Only one tiny portion really required a flashlight and it was just a little too small for me to fit into. Jaime offered to help me carry over a log so I could climb into the main chamber but it wasn’t really necessary as I had seen it from above and knew which chamber it lead to. It was cool how they were all connected though.

     We bushwhacked our way back down, aiming for the road so we could avoid tight roping across the beaver damn but we came out right at the swamp anyway. This time we picked our way over rocks and logs on the lower side of the dam thinking it might be easier. Turns out it wasn’t but luckily nothing too strenuous. We explored an abandoned boat house along the jeep road we passed on our way out and made it back to the truck with lots of scrapes but no major injuries. Although the scratch a branch had left on the back of my knee was still burning hours later, I realized after my shower that a sliver of the branch was actually jammed in the cut. A pair of tweezers pulled it right out and it still hurts but not nearly as much as it did when the piece of wood was in my skin.

    After our successful adventure we headed into town to pick up supper. We each had a lobster, some corn on the cob and shared a few pounds of clams. Everything was incredible. It more than made up for the disgusting mussels we had a week ago that we ended up throwing out. Dicky’s looking forward to joining us on some of our Acadia excursions this summer.

    We were shocked to have actually found the cave on our first try considering we had no real directions and weren’t even sure if we were searching on the right hill. I figured it would take a few trips to find. Now that I’m looking at the information I took down about the cave off the geological website, there is no question we found it. Everything matches up exactly to their diagram. But I still can’t find any information on it whatsoever online, no pictures, nothing, so it looks like this will be the first.