Hiking in Greenville, Maine

Oh, there are LOTS of terrific hikes in Greenville. You are near the Appalachian Mountains, after all, so you know there are some great hikes available. The Appalachian Trail passes southeast of Greenville and touches some of the day hikes you can choose from. Pick up a little brochure from the visitor's center on your way into Greenville, called "Hiking Guide to the Moosehead Lake Region". Sparky absolutely HAD to get out on a trail before leaving Maine. So she found one in this guide. Only it was about 12 miles outside of Greenville. That was ok...Eldy didn't mind driving Sparky to the hike starting point. His knees were bothering him, so he decided he should be the transporter today..... Sparky thought she might need some bug spray, so we stopped at a little general store in Greenville to look for some. Wanna buy some moose antlers for a souvenir? Here's half of a pair, ten bucks. There were a bunch of them in a bin. These didn't look too swift.

The drive into the hiking starting point was SCARY after getting off the main road. After traveling to Monson, a nearby town, you get off the main road and take a gravel road for 0.7 of a mile. The gravel road was barely no wider than the width of a car, and we were driving a rental. The sides of the road had not been trimmed since last year, and branches bare and/or leafy were a constant threat to scratching the car. The potholes were abysmal! Sparky could tell that Eldy wanted to turn around but he couldn't, it was a one way drive into the hiking destination. If you met somebody on the road coming out, there were only two places where you could even think about pulling off to let them by. He prayed on the way in that we wouldn't meet anybody. We didn't.....Whew!

We got to the campground site where the hike started. Eldy's knees would not be able to take a "moderate" hike so he graciously waited in the car while I headed out, rather than drive BACK out the horrible washed out road, with no cell phone signal, so he read literature in the car while Sparky started her hike. The trail was well marked with blue blazes.

You walk upstream on a trail that follows a river. After about .8 of a mile, you come to the Appalachian Trail, designated by white blazes on the trees. Sounds easy, right? Wel-l-l-l-l....yes and no. The distance is short, the hike is steep! The trail starts out not too badly....

Then, lots of roots....

Once you get on the AT, you only have to go about two tenths of a mile, but it seemed a lot longer than that, till you get to the falls....See the incline? There's a drop off to the right. You are steadily, steadily climbing to get to a gorge and the falls, which are NOT little, by the way.

On the way to the falls, Sparky saw a check in box for the AT. She thought about registering for a moment, just to note that she was on the AT, but that's really for people doing longer hikes, so she didn't. Although she almost got lost later, so perhaps that WOULD have been a good idea!

This is a very popular hike, despite the awful road leading into the parking lot which is basically a very small campground site about big enough for two or three tenting families. But the view is fantastic at the gorge....

Your final destination can be a little scary and hiking with very young children is NOT recommended as there are only slippery rocks and big rounded boulders at the end of the trail. Sparky lay down on her stomach to photograph the gorge below and she gulped a little. It wouldn't take much to lose your balance on the rounded rock she was standing, then sitting, then laying on.

BUT---the falls were fantastic! And not so little!

Time to head back, Eldo was waiting....Sparky eagerly started back reversing her steps, or she THOUGHT she was...After following the trail and reversing the colors of the blazes, white first, then blue, Sparky noticed that she was now right next to the river, instead of being on higher ground. She knew she was on the Appalachian Trail for much longer than she should have been. Something was wrong. She had not seen a blue blaze for some time. Sparky headed a little further, nope, not right...She should have picked up the blue blaze trail by now. Sparky started to panic, she did not see the AT trail to reverse her direction and get back a ways to where she wandered off the trail. As she looked around, there didn't seem to be a sign of a trail in front of her or in back or her, or to the side. There must have been an intersection between the Little Wilson Falls trail and the AT, and Sparky had missed it coming back. Twenty minutes went by. Sparky thought "Uh-oh, I'm in trouble. It's late in the afternoon and I'm lost." She took a deep breath. She knew she had to get on higher ground, she just needed to retrace backwards, not deviating from the very narrow path she was on.

So, back she went, and finally, about five minutes later, which seemed like thirty, she saw an intersecting sign, with white, blue, and PINK markings. There was a pink "equals" sign beside the AT white, and Little Wilson Falls blue blaze, which apparently signified that the falls trail joined the AT there. Sparky never saw that tree with the markings the first time on the way back. But there was the BLUE, and she knew she was ok. A big sigh of relief.....A BIG sigh.....And she bogeyed back on the trail towards the car where Eldy was waiting....He was just beginning to worry, he said....Sparky downplayed how nervous she was at getting off the trail and being temporarily lost, she knew she could have followed the river back, except the AT trail ventured AWAY from the river after a while, and that was not going to be an option. At any rate, Sparky decided to never hike again without some sort of compass! This was a short hike, folks, so not as alarming as it sounds...Sparky could see, however, how easily someone might panic on a hike, how someone could blindly head off into the woods in a slight panic and REALLY get to the point where there was no trail whatsoever to follow....She was glad Eldo was waiting up ahead. She had planned about how long it would take, and Eldo would have come looking for her, if needed. There were also other campers near the trail at the time of the hike, so Sparky was confident that if she didn't find the trail soon, she could use her whistle to sound an alarm......

Oh! Sparky did see some interesting things on the trail back from the falls....Is this bear poop or moose poop?  Could be deer poop, maybe? That was one thing she got a little nervous about. And she could SWEAR she heard some animal noise on the ridge above her, like a bear rustling around....heheheheheheh......

Hard to see, but Sparky thought this might be a moose hoof? or a deer hoof? It was quite big for a deer. And hard to see if it was a split hoof or not.....

It was an exhilarating hike for more reason than one...Sparky loved seeing the falls, and hopes to return to do more hikes in the Greenville, Maine area next year....

A terrific visit to Maine this year...We are truly blessed that we saw so many things this time...Sparky got to bike and hike and whale watch, and both Eldy and I loved our trip this year...We had a wonderful time at beautiful, beautiful Acadia and Bar Harbor.....See you on our next adventure! Sparky heads to Virginia......Eldo heads to Indiana to see his granddaughter play golf, play golf with her and his grandson, and visit his son and daughter....Bye for now....

Day 6--Acadia National Park/Bar Harbor--Whale Watching Tour

Sparky absolutely HAS to go on any whale watching tour that is available in our travels....Even though the weather was cool to cold for us the first week in June in Bar Harbor, (in the fifties)--now that we are Floridians, Sparky still wanted to go. Eldo thought that maybe it was too early in the season for whales to be in the area, and with the cold, rainy weather, Sparky thought he might be right. (WHAT??? What did you say??? asks E. Did I hear you say I might be right?????) So-o-o-o-o.... today dawned with a little better weather, temps were up just a bit...around 60...We decided to chance it and GO! Really really bundled up...layers and layers of clothing, and Eldo even decided to buy a sweatshirt, to add to his layers. We just LOVE being out on the water.....

We went with the Bar Harbor whale watching/puffin tour...the company is right at the wharf at Bar Harbor. It was early in the season, first week of June, they had only been underway since mid May, we think. Prices were 59.00 a person. The company is a very good company with responsible ecological goals and deserves the support your tourist dollars, we feel....

There was a little bit of a chop (waves and some small up and down movement), and briefly Sparky fought some queasiness, easily remedied by heading to the upper deck and breathing in some fresh air. A lot of folks ended up using the seasick bags...Sparky got a kick out of the name on the bag....

There was an Asian lady and her daughter sitting right across from us inside the cabin as we waited for the whale activity to begin. We first had to ride a good half hour to get anywhere where we might see whales. Sparky saw the mom using a pencil/stylus type tool on her daughter's hand. Apparently, she was doing acupressure or some kind of massage technique on her daughter to help her with queasiness.

The book in front of her was the "complete guide to acupressure points" Sparky guessed. This is what one of the pages looked like. It was really cool! Then all of a sudden, the mom grabbed Sparky's hand and started vigorously stroking the webbing between Sparky's fingers on her left hand and pushing HARD on her fingers. She was talking in Japanese (Korean?) rapidly to her daughter and the daughter translated a little. She said that her mother said Sparky was healthy. She also asked if Sparky had a little trouble with lower back pain. Actually, Sparky has trouble with the left lower side of her back and side now and then. Sparky was startled that this lady was able to tell that just by stroking the fingers on her hand! Interesting!

Soon, we were far out from Bar Harbor....We first passed the Egg Rock Lighthouse where the puffins were nesting and swimming. They are little dudes...only about 12" in length. Sparky tried very hard to get some photos, but with the boat rocking up and down quite a bit, it was impossible to get the camera steady enough to capture any puffins. Darn! Bring on the whales! We were well into the trip and hadn't seen anything at all in the way of the great mammals when one was spotted!

A finback whale! He was close! So close that the naturalist aboard said there was something not quite right about him.

It turned out that the whale was tangled in some kind of lines and buoys and was trying to swim and drag himself out of it. The boat was able to get close enough to the whale to document that this was happening, and they immediately started logging his GPS location and other identifying details to a special team in Maine that specializes in rescuing entangled whales. The ship's captain and crew announced that we would need to spend more time by the whale in order to get the best and most current information to the rescue team to try and help the whale. OK by us! The whale continued to move while we were in the area, dragging the lines and buoys with him. The naturalist said that the whale could have been trapped for quite some time, although they didn't see him as starving or in drastic imminent danger quite yet, he was thin. He was breathing quite often, though, and we were all concerned for him. She said that she had heard of THREE entrapped whales in the time that she had been working the whale watch trip, all in one season. Sad! The whale watch company has protocols that they follow:

After spending 40 minutes with this animal, we realized it was dragging buoys and had fishing line cutting into its tail. Because the whale was thinner than normal, we believe the whale was entangled for quite some time, (many days...probably weeks). The Friendship V followed Whale SENSE protocol and called the Coast Guard, Department of Marine Resources, and Center for Coastal Studies. Unfortunately, because we were 42 miles from Bar Harbor, and the whale was not anchored to the ocean floor by the gear, NOAA's whale disentanglement's team made the decision hold off on sending out a vessel out to search for the whale this morning. If this whale is relocated and reported NOAA will decide if a disentanglement team will be dispatched from the Maine Department of Marine Resources Marine Patrol.

But of course we didn't mind staying in the area and the trip being twice as long as it was supposed to be, with the chance of seeing a whale so close by....But very sad circumstances.....

The crew said it could take HOURS for a team to come into the area where the whale was, and it looked like after a lot of communication between all parties involved, that nothing could be done till the next day....With heavy hearts, the crew and ship with all of us had to leave the area.....Not knowing if anyone would be able to locate this distressed whale.

We found out after we got back, a few days later, that they were not able to get a team to this whale...His fate and location were unknown....Later, after we returned to Florida, we heard of another whale called Spinnaker, a 35 foot humpback whale, that had been rescued from lines and traps three times in 11 years, only to succumb to a death that was unknown when she was found washed ashore, dead, in Bar Harbor near Great Head.

On another note, one last hurrah before leaving beautiful Maine, to head home for Florida. We are leaving for Moosehead Lake to go hunting for---MOOSE! We are going to spend two days in Greenville, Maine and see if we can't spot some moose! Stay tuned....See you next time!