Baxter

I am the black cloud of Sandy Stream.  

I've been there maybe a dozen times over the years and never once saw a moose.  Seriously!  This is the one place in the entire state where you are pretty much guaranteed to have a moose sighting.  People come here on "Moose Tours", Baxter state park has special "Moose Pass" parking spaces, everyone and their mothers come here to see moose.

I've seen them plenty of moose in other places, but never in the one spot where they flock to like moths to a flame: Sandy Stream.

It's a quick walk through the woods from the car park, and then it's elevated walkway to get to the clear, sparkling pond.  There are a few places to duck off the trail and take in the scene, which is just lovely.  A close-up of Katahdin and the knife edge to Hamlin Peak, South Turner mountain, and huge swarths of pine forest creating inky-black patchworks.

I did see plenty though.  Not only is it just a lovely peaceful place to relax in the sun, I saw oogles of critters around the pond:  Beautiful, flashy ceader waxwings-

I love these chipper little birds.  They sit so obviously in the pine-tops and stay there for a while, so I can usually get better than usual shots of them with a normal camera lens.

The squirrels were so frantically putting away pinecones, they were loathe to get off the trail until you almost on top of them.  Little piles of pinecone shavings dotted the walkway.

The water was full of ducks: Goldeneyes, Black Ducks, loons.

An elegantly long-legged spotted sandpiper darted from rock to rock.

More waxwings!

As the sun got lower in the sky, the songbirds made their way out into the open for a drink, and tiny chickadees and warblers flitted their way to a prime spot for drinking.  Across the pond, I saw a kingfisher diving for, um, fish.

Along came a hairy woodpecker to bang his head on a tree for a bit.

And close enough for me to not need a zoom lens, a whitetail doe sauntered on past.  It's really amazing how diverse the fauna is here.  Sitting quietly in one place and soon you become near-invisible.  Well, that is until a large family from New Jersey come by and say "HEY, WHERE ARE THE MOOSE??  HAS ANYONE SEEN A MOOSE?  WERE DO YOU GO TO SEE A REAL MOOSE?  WE CAME ALL THIS WAY TO SEE A MOOSE" and I wanted to cry a bit.

I could have sat there all day, but we did show up to hike.  Despite the rangers warning us that "moose pass" meant to sandy stream and back only, we took a, ahem, detour.  Or, "we got lost, I swear!" and headed up to Whidden Pond.

It was weird to walk in dense forest!  One thing England doesn't have much of is primordial old-growth forest.  So much more dark and fragrant, and there were mushrooms popping up everywhere, with lots of rotting and fallen trees, dense underbrush, and a foreboding sense of certain doom if you ever ventured off the trail.
 
While I do love walking here in Maine, I would never undertake the Appalachian trail.   Not enough to see!  Just endless hundreds of miles of walking in the woods.  

No moose at Whidden, either.

It's a magic place in its own right.

We sheepishly made our way back to the car park in dusk and headed down the long, bumpy tote road back to civilization, peering out into the roadside ponds and bogs, hoping for a chance sighting.  

My record still stands.  There will never be a moose at Sandy Stream as long as I am there.  

North

There's something kind of disconcerting about heading up to Northern Maine. I've been making the trip my entire life, and I still get creeped out. During the summer months, where there is an influx of traffic that seems to get worse every year in most of the state, but as soon as you get above Bangor, the highway and streets are eerily empty. No cars, no towns, no people. Just woods. The kind of woods that if you walked 10 feet into them, you could manage to get lost and never be heard from again.

True story: when I was 6, my aunt told me their were dinosaurs living out back in the woods. Even though I knew they were all long dead and fossilized and I wasn't a particularly gullible kid, I totally believed her. They are the kind of woods that can hold a secret.

It's the kind of place where you stop to help the turtles across the road.

Also, rather terrifyingly, moose abound.

Moose are fearless. Their only natural predator are wolves, and there are few of those even in these woods. They do not bat an eye when you stumble upon one, and unlike deer, they will stand their ground and even charge if they think you are a threat. They are also too stupid to be afraid of cars, and they frequently congregate on the sides of the road to lick off rock salt leftover from the winter.

This is why moose hunting is not a sport.

They are quite tasty though. The biggest challenge being to drag something that huge out of the woods, but those who do have a nice freezer full of meat for the winter.

I've only been able to take pictures of the ass ends of deer as they are running away, but you could sit in front of a moose and take pictures until you are bored. They stare at you placidly and stupidly and go about their day.

Oh, and in this part of Maine, you can get on a list with the local game wardens. If someone hits and kills a deer with their car, the warden will call you up to come fetch your roadkill.

So, the creepy factor continues. The town of Millinocket is still desolate and economically depressed. There are more empty houses and full, and it's just quiet in a way it shouldn't be.

Want to buy a house here? 3 bedrooms start at $25,000. You can pay your downpayment with whatever you find under your sofa cushions. You will probably have to commute to work 60 miles each way to Bangor, meaning your gas will cost more than your mortgage.

It's just odd to walk around and encounter almost no one. Despite their being sidewalks, no one actually seems to use them.

Hence the need to leave town and head to the lake, where it's okay that no one else is around.