{"id":12144,"date":"2022-12-06T13:37:11","date_gmt":"2022-12-06T20:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/?p=12144"},"modified":"2022-12-07T08:28:56","modified_gmt":"2022-12-07T15:28:56","slug":"old-pond-railway-trail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/2022\/12\/old-pond-railway-trail\/","title":{"rendered":"Old Pond Railway Trail"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My walk today brought me down Old Pond Railway Trail. Sam & I walked this way yesterday, and I saw a large patch of lichen windfall. I wanted to go back today and do some gathering. It is such a peaceful area in an unspoiled landscape. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s the view of the Old Pond from the beginning of the trail. The land trust website calls it “a stunning tidal cove.” I’m standing on a built up area that’s the old rail bed. It crosses the water and there’s a trestle that allows the pond to flow out with the tide. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Old Pond<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And on the other side, the view overlooking Youngs Bay. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Overlooking Young\u2019s Bay<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It’s impossible to walk along here and not try to imagine what it must have been like when there was an active railway going through here. So many questions. For starters, where did all this landfill come from to build up the rail bed? It must have been a rather petite train because there are narrow passageways that must have been blasted through rock. Part of the trail is very straight and looks like a rail trail. In other parts, trees are growing up in the middle and the path winds around to avoid them. There are still railroad ties lining the trail, some in a more advanced state of decay than others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Crabtree Neck Land Trust website <\/a>has this bit of history: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The railway was originally built by Maine Central Railroad in the 1880s and carried visitors from as far as Philadelphia to Hancock, where they boarded ferries to reach the famous Gilded Age summer resorts on Mount Desert Island.<\/p>\nFrom Crabtree Neck Land Trust website<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Rock ledges on either side of narrow passageway. A large tree is overgrowing the rock at left. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The trestle has been worked on recently. I think it was young people, maybe Eagle Scouts? They left some interesting graffiti. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Graffiti – “Poetic Justice”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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More graffiti – “The Void”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After crossing the trestle, I entered the woods again. A little ways further, the lichen windfall. I took off my pack basket and started gathering. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The windfall – crumpled rag lichen?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I tried to identify the type of lichen. Copying a friend’s ID – this one looked similar. Not sure though. I don’t think it is the type of lichen that dyes red\/purple. Expecting more of a yellow or tan, if I can actually get any color. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Platismatia tuckermanii<\/em><\/strong> is a species of corticolous<\/a> (bark-dwelling), foliose lichen<\/a> in the family Parmeliaceae<\/a>.<\/p>\nWikipedia<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Gathering into my pack basket<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Some of the lichen was arrayed on branches in a very attractive way. I stuck the whole branch into my basket – I could visualize them on the table as part of a forest-y holiday centerpiece. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lichen on tree branch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I walked a little further along. I wanted to explore this path that we identified yesterday – marked with a piece of rag, maybe a t-shirt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Side path marker<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The side path led through woods with a lot of fallen broken trees. I looked behind me often, trying to impress the return route on my memory. I was not very far off the rail trail, but I could imagine getting lost. The path ended at the bay, with a bit of a view of the mountains of Acadia. If I wanted to scramble and get muddy (and maybe wet), I could have accessed the shore. But I decided against it and just returned to the trail. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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View of bay from side path<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The return trip of course led back the way I came. The photo shows a very straight portion of the trail, opening out into the light where the trail crosses the water. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Going back – trestle ahead<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I played around with the phone camera, trying to find the point where it would see what my eye saw instead of a whited-out hole. The dark shadow of the forest really affected it. I thought this place was pretty, with the birches growing near the trail. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Closer to trestle<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So that was my journey today – now to think about cleaning and dyeing with that lichen. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My walk today brought me down Old Pond Railway Trail. Sam & I walked this way yesterday, and I saw a large patch of lichen windfall. I wanted to go back today and do...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[483,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lichen","category-walking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12144"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12156,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12144\/revisions\/12156"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}