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Minimoon 2: Fearful summitry
Aug. 15th, 2008 11:17 pmWe climbed two mountains today, one by accident.
The first was Gorham, which was the on-purpose one. We'd caught Thunder Hole at just the right time (10AM — the tide was an hour from high, and the surf was booming into the stone slot and exploding in fireworks of spume, drenching the onlookers like a Shamu show) and visited Sand Beach, and decided we had time to hike 500 feet to the granite backbone of Gorham Mountain. The views were stunning, miles and miles of ocean in front of us and pine-cloaked mountain slopes behind, below a cloud-free sky. We took the Cadillac Cliffs detour on the way back, which was ankle-bendingly uneven but led along blocky, excitingly riven cliffs of gray stone, hung with drizzling moss and pierced by caves and tunnels. One was sea-smoothed and filled with rounded boulders, like Rodan eggs; this cave at 500 feet was hollowed out by the ocean! Mushrooms were everywhere.
When we made it back down, we took the (free! air conditioned! padded!) bus to the Jordan Pond House for afternoon tea: incredibly tasty popovers (with strawberry jam good enough to make us spend $6.75 on a jar for home) and mediocre, watery seafood chowder. We hiked halfway around the pond — mirror-rippled water surrounded by glorious green mountains — then detoured up one of said mountains (South Bubble, which I think should be called South Boob, because — well, it's obvious when you see them) to see the balancing boulder. Unfortunately, due to a bit of trail confusion, we wound up bumbling around up and down slopes for an hour, and finally approached the mountain from the side opposite the pond. We said we'd just hike up to the rock and then back down, but as it turned out the balancing rock was balanced just beside the peak, so we wound up climbing the whole dang mountain anyway. The "shortcut" route we found back to the pond was a steep plunge down a slope of jumbled pink granite boulders, and by the time we reached the bottom the pond was completely occluded by a wall of white: the fog had rolled in, filling the valley bowl with skim milk. It was like the scene at the end of Holy Grail, when the boat appears out of the fog to take them to Castle Aargh. Our return to Jordan Pond House was made through an eerie, gray-toned Purgatory, following an endless two-plank boardwalk over mossy streams and mushroom clusters.
We didn't make it back to town until 7:45, and our dinner was very late, but very good. We split decadent lobster crêpes at Maggie's, with wine-soaked mussels and a sausage-jalapeño potato on the side, and a truffle sundae for dessert. Two for two, we are, for dinner choices here.
We're both exhausted and sun-crisped after 8 miles of hiking. CBC's Olympic coverage is much more bearable than NBC's. Still good to be married.
The first was Gorham, which was the on-purpose one. We'd caught Thunder Hole at just the right time (10AM — the tide was an hour from high, and the surf was booming into the stone slot and exploding in fireworks of spume, drenching the onlookers like a Shamu show) and visited Sand Beach, and decided we had time to hike 500 feet to the granite backbone of Gorham Mountain. The views were stunning, miles and miles of ocean in front of us and pine-cloaked mountain slopes behind, below a cloud-free sky. We took the Cadillac Cliffs detour on the way back, which was ankle-bendingly uneven but led along blocky, excitingly riven cliffs of gray stone, hung with drizzling moss and pierced by caves and tunnels. One was sea-smoothed and filled with rounded boulders, like Rodan eggs; this cave at 500 feet was hollowed out by the ocean! Mushrooms were everywhere.
When we made it back down, we took the (free! air conditioned! padded!) bus to the Jordan Pond House for afternoon tea: incredibly tasty popovers (with strawberry jam good enough to make us spend $6.75 on a jar for home) and mediocre, watery seafood chowder. We hiked halfway around the pond — mirror-rippled water surrounded by glorious green mountains — then detoured up one of said mountains (South Bubble, which I think should be called South Boob, because — well, it's obvious when you see them) to see the balancing boulder. Unfortunately, due to a bit of trail confusion, we wound up bumbling around up and down slopes for an hour, and finally approached the mountain from the side opposite the pond. We said we'd just hike up to the rock and then back down, but as it turned out the balancing rock was balanced just beside the peak, so we wound up climbing the whole dang mountain anyway. The "shortcut" route we found back to the pond was a steep plunge down a slope of jumbled pink granite boulders, and by the time we reached the bottom the pond was completely occluded by a wall of white: the fog had rolled in, filling the valley bowl with skim milk. It was like the scene at the end of Holy Grail, when the boat appears out of the fog to take them to Castle Aargh. Our return to Jordan Pond House was made through an eerie, gray-toned Purgatory, following an endless two-plank boardwalk over mossy streams and mushroom clusters.
We didn't make it back to town until 7:45, and our dinner was very late, but very good. We split decadent lobster crêpes at Maggie's, with wine-soaked mussels and a sausage-jalapeño potato on the side, and a truffle sundae for dessert. Two for two, we are, for dinner choices here.
We're both exhausted and sun-crisped after 8 miles of hiking. CBC's Olympic coverage is much more bearable than NBC's. Still good to be married.
