Stone's North Woods Adventures (SNWA)

@Stone what's on the agenda for tomorrow???

 

I'll finish up the video of my March 3 walk in the south 50.

It's 95% now after a lot of editing today. But the cam cut out at the end -- not enough storage on the card --
so I've got to record an ending, just to finish my thoughts. I'll add some still photos -- got them loaded already --
and do a voice over. Rendering and uploading will take hours. (I'm getting 1 mb/s here for upload.)

Then, I'll take another walk out there. The super cold of the last couple of days with wind chill should be done.

Then, I'll come back in and cook some eggs with large yokes.

Here's one of the images you'll see in the vid. Not mine. Just 50 mi N.

This is why I live here and deal with winter.

Long day, started early. Bed soon ...

 

11:46 pm .. Going to bed soon ..

 

12:45 am.

Just checking in before sleep .. maybe . . .

 

OK, 1 am.
One more.

Then, I sleep.
Perhaps.
Maybe.
Not.

After all, this is only
mid-Maine, not northern main.
Aroostook is north of here .. 75 - 100 mi.
__ _ _

Here's a mash up.

Wondering if you've figured out who the Seer is . ?
{If you're not a fan of Vikings, then ignore that inquiry.}

I'll just put this here for now.

 

Monday, March 6, 2017, 1:05 am.

After days of editing since last Friday,
I'm finally uploading the next video.

Only at 2% now after 10 min.
This gonna be an all night sucker.

But if it works -- keyword: if -- then, you might enjoy it.

I'll be back in a minute with some music suggestions while we wait for this glacial upload to finish ...

 

Again ... Katahdin

 

1:20 am. 14%.

I'm not going to see upload finished tonight.
Just gonna have to simmer. Maybe I'll check back around 5 am. We'll see.

 

2:15 am. 50%.

Damn this glacial upload.

But it is what it is. At least I've got
vodka & lime juice.

 

Upload finished after 4 am.

Please take a 20 min walk with me. Nothing spectacular or Earth-shaking here. Just an afternoon walk in a place I'm getting to know and would like to share with you.

Feedback welcome.

 

Glad I joined up here again. Getting a mo better view of your new digs and local habitat. I am happy that you are more at peace than you have been in a long time. Seemingly you have found a home for awhile.
I understand why you are anxious for more suitable weather days ahead.
Are you going to jump on the AT and wander to terminus?

 

Glad you've joined us again, too, SmokyMt.

My plan is to wander around to the east of it, up into the eastern flanks of Katahdin.
I've always been more of a peak admirer than bagger. That is, I want to look at it more than climb it,
to ponder its geology, its origins, its ecology ... all from a distance so I can see the big picture.

And as it turns out, the AT will not really terminate there.
There's a move to extend it up towards Labrador and beyond.

 

This post is a test to see if updates that I made to the title of the video are reflected here in the thumbnail. There were not on a different forum.

ETA: PS: It worked fine here.

 

Sunday, March 12, 2017, 8:30 pm. Dinner cooking on the basecamp (studio) stove: corned beef, egg, onion, pepper, cheeses (cream and habenaro jack), asparagus, accompanied by vodka citrus drinks.

It's now plumetting toward 0 F outside with wind chills tonight well into the negative teens. (toasty in the studio, though)

Got back in from a 2.5 hour walk in my back woods (50 acres in the back of my base camp studio) around 7 p m.

Most of the walk hovered around 15 F with a stiff wind carrying wind chill below 0 easily. We've still got 1' very hard packed and in places ICY snow (I'm talking ice rink here) left over from a 3 - 4 ' base starting from December.

I was wearing 4 layers, including a heavy fleece base shirt, heavy fleece sweater with tall neck, heavy vest, and heavy hooded coat, along with two fleece hats, one a fleece balaclava.

As a result of the layering, my torso and legs were fine, but my fingers and toes got very cold (next winter, I'll be prepared with better boots and Arctic mittens). Removing gloves for more than 1 min was painful. Yes, painful. By the time I got back near dark, T was even lower, wind MUCH stronger, and 30 sec at the door fumbling with keys (which I could not feel) was again painful. I soaked my feet in warm, then hot water for 15 min. Warm again now, toasty ready for dinner.

But the best part: I got some of the best vid footage I've shot down on my circuit walk, and some great new pics. I'm so happy. All will be woven into a video tour of the area with vid footage, still photos and narration. Coming soon to a Youtube Channel near you ....

That may be the last walk until after Tuesday Wednesday's nor'easter, our third of the season. Blizzard conditions predicted with over 1' of fresh snow. I'll walk it on snow shoes Thursday with more pics and vid footage.

Here's one sample of several nice stills from today; this is ash tree hammock camp (to be); gonna take some time to edit vids.

More stills later tonight? Maybe ... we'll see ...

 

This just in.

Yesterday, I found a new glacial erratic
down in the ravine, near the other side,
from the Canadian shield near Hudson Bay
on my afternoon walk on a 1' base of packed snow
that's slicker than goose poop coated with olive oil & butter.

Those rocks are from the Archean eon.

It's not like the others.
The others are granite.

This one has layers, like teeth.

Granite doesn't layer.

 

Looks like quartz we have a crapton in this state. Do not hold me to it, I am viewing on a small screen. And yes, crapton is an official state of Maine measurement.

I am not a rock expert and usually you (I) find quartz embedded and in bands. But quartz is hard, like Flint and chert. It can be used to strike a spark like them as well. My guess is this rock is really figgin old and the softer "outer" rock has worn away leaving the exposed bubba teeth quartz exposed in what is a really cool rock.
That is my guess.

 

I strongly suspect there's an element of truth there, T'dore. There may indeed be some quartz in that rock. Especially down low in that photo, near the bottom of the pic -- I see some white sticking out. I'll check it again more closely next time I'm out there (which won't be again until after the nor'easter, and after that snow melts back where I can see it better).

But what struck me as most interesting about it is that unlike the other erratics I've found out there, this one appears to be layered. The others I've seen near here appear to be some kind of granite -- which has a lot of quartz in them. Granites and basalts are calcium silicate based. (Quartz is pure silicate, IIRC.) Basalts are igneous, granites are metamorphic. (I think I got that right, but I, too, am no geologist, so I'll check my reference source. **)

But this one appears -- underscore appears -- to have layers, suggesting that originally it may have been sedimentary. Yet it has the look of having been metamorphosed. Which would mean that an originally sedimentary rock was pulled down near the mantle, subjected to immense pressure and temperatures, then eventually lifted back up to the surface.

And quartz is often injected in between the layers during metamorphosis, resulting in streaks called "intrusions". I'll dig up a great example that I found down near Rockland a couple of years ago.

Since all the glacial erratics around here are from NW of here -- again, if I understand correctly (I'm new to this area and geology) -- pulled down from the Canadian Shield.

If all this is true, then we can definitely agree: this puppy is very very old.

I'm fascinated by the rocks here. The stories they could tell if they could talk -- getting carried for hundreds of miles frozen into the bottom of a mile-thick sheet of ice, and dropped, perhaps repeatedly over one or two million years. That just boggles my mind in a pleasant way.

I'm lucky to have a good friend and student who is a geologist. I'm going to tap his knowledge about this.

** Speaking of my reference source, here's the best book on Maine geology I've found so far. It's a bit dated -- published in the late 80's I think -- but I'm told by experts that not a lot has changed in our basic understanding since then.

 

Found it. This intrusion was HUGE. It ran for about 30' through this rock on the coast, but had been twisted into a Z shape. The outer few dozen miles of Maine's coast was added onto North America when a little micro continent named Avalonia -- formed during the break up of Pangaea -- collided with the western moving North American craton hundreds of millions of years ago. As a result, the coastal rocks are a twisted, tangled bunch of stones.

 

I have hunted on top of some absolutely huge ones. Had to climb a tree to get on one. I have camped in the crack of a split one. I will try to bring the kids out to my old stomping grounds and get some pictures this summer.

 

That sounds cool.