We decided to hike the Green Gardens Trail today. It is a few miles from the campground and leads out to cliff top meadows on the western shore. It can be done as a 16 km loop or 9 km out and back. We went out and back.
On our way to the trailhead we stopped in the town of Trout River for some ice. Since we were starting faurly early and it was overcast, we couldn’t depend on enough sun to power the refrigerator on DC without draining the batteries. This left us with only the propane option. To make it easier to keep the refrigerator compartment cool, we bought a bag of iceand put it in thebox on the bottom shelf. This was successful in keeping the temperature below 40 through the day.
The Green Gardens Trail starts out with a gentle clinb through a field of stones. Almost nothing grows among these peridotite rocks, which are part of an exposed section of the Earth’s mantle pushed up as continents collided about a half-billion years ago, then exposed by repeated glaciation. The rock contains high high percentage of minerals which are toxic to plants. This section of the park has an area called the Tablelands which basically a mesa of this rock.
As we got higher we left the rock field and moved into a stunted pine forest which continued through the top of the hike at about 800 ft. Since we started at around 600 ft., this wasn’t too strenuous a climb. It was all downhill from here...800 ft. to sea level in about two miles. The trail sort of stair stepped down with very steep section interspersed with more gentle ones...and there were a lot of stairs as well. There was even a 100 ft. climb in the middle just to make things interesting.
The forest got taller the closer we got to the coast and we came out in the meadow that runs along the edge of the cliffs down to the water. The trail continues north for another 3 miles, but we only walked about a half mile until we found the sheep.
Traditionally, sheep have been put out to graze in thes meadows and the practice continues even in the national park. I’m not sure how they get them out and back. I assume along the trail. We found about two dozen among the backcountry campsites on this part of the trail. There was even a group of them clustered under a raised tent platform...just like tho old days, people above and animals underneath. They looked like they had been out here all winter. The adults were very heavily laden with wool and about half the flock were young lambs.
They view from the cliff was pretty spectacular. There were stacks below us jutting out of the water an long views in each direction with the hills coming down tomthe sea, ending at rocky cliffs. We could just mak out the Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland in the distance. It was a pretty gray and hazy view, however.
The only thing missing were birds. There were a couple of Black-backed gulls on one of offshore rocks and we saw a raptor, probably a falcon, perched on a rock at the edge of the cliff. It flew down over the cliff before we could identify it.
We stopped for an early lunch at one if the campsite picnic tables overlooking the water. After lunch it was time to head back to Speedy. Now it was 800 ft. straight up. It seemed that there were a thousand stairs. These weren’t the good kind either. They were made as 8” risers constructed as a frame of 4x4s with dirt fill in the center of the step. Unfortunately, in most the dirt had worn away meaning that you were stepping over the riser front into a hole. It was not pleasant climbing. Were there weren’t stairs, there were rocks. Ellen read somewhere that this was cosidered a strenuous trail...that’s understandable.
We could hear lots of birds on the way in, mostly White-throated Sparrows singing, but couldn’t spot any. We had a bit more luck on the way back, getting good looks at both an Alder Flycatcher and a White-throated Sparrow, but the overall bird list was pretty short.
We made it back to Speedy in much better time than we expected, but very tired. It was back to the campground. We drove directly to the shower house and Ellen showered while filled Speedy’s nearly empty fresh water tank. After parking back at the campsite, it was my turn to stumble back to the ablutions block for my very necessary shower,
After getting the van back into some semblance of order, it was time for some fresh grilled pizza for dinner. We are making good use of our new outdoor stove and the cast iron griddle/grill plate we got for it. It is amuch more powerful stove than our old one, but the cast iron grill has been great. We are still getting used to the combination and we don’t need to turn the burners very high to get the grill up to temperature. It made great pizza.
Tomorrow we will probably continue north going up to L’Anse aux Meadows. This is the opposite of our original plan, but the hurricane seems to be bringing a whole week of windy wet weather to the east coast. This means that we might scratch going to Labrador as our original thought was to see how much time we had left when we got to the top at the far end of the trip. There is now too much time and we don’t want to miss the breeding seabirds, particularly the Puffins on the East coast. But who knows...tomorrow’s forecast may be completely different.
Almost forgot the squirrel. As I was sitting here in the passenger seat, writing this journal entry, I could hear a familiar clunking noise. It suddenly dawned on me that I’d last heard it camped at Denali, when the red squirrels were eating the insulation under Speedy’s hood. I jumped out of the van and as I walked around to the front, a little red squirrel popped out from the left side wheel well. It doesn’t seem to have done any damage yet, somI put a fresh packet of Fresh Cab rodent repellent in the engine compartment. Unfortunately, we don’t have ay hoypt sauce, but we did dribble sime vinegar on the insulation. Let’s hope it stays away.
We Have Photos!
We Also Have Ferry Photos!
We Have Photos!
We Also Have Ferry Photos!
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