by Don McGowan | May 2, 2020 | May 2020
A thousand years ago the Fremont People, a culture contemporaneous with the Ancestral Puebloans, lived in what is now Capitol Reef National Park. The amazing redrock of that part of the Colorado Plateau is a land of uplifts and canyons. Water is a scarce commodity....
by Don McGowan | Apr 25, 2020 | April 2020
At high tide, augmented by a squall, a small nor’easter actually, the pink granite cliffs that line the entrance to Ship Harbor thunder with the crashing surf coming in off the stormy Atlantic. Breakers reaching 30-35′ in height spray across the rocks....
by Don McGowan | Apr 17, 2020 | April 2020
I can’t help but think of Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park as the land of rock, water, and light. All three are omnipresent and abundant along this beautiful stretch of the Maine Coast: Downeast as it is known. One of the under-appreciated ecosystems...
by Don McGowan | Apr 11, 2020 | April 2020
There are several interesting stories of how Ship Harbor came by its name; but what is not contested in the least is that the 1.3 mile, figure-eight loop nature trail that skirts the edge of the harbor before cutting back into a lovely maritime forest of conifers and...
by Don McGowan | Apr 4, 2020 | April 2020
It’s been several years since I’ve been to Acadia National Park for the fall color, although there was a time when I went nearly every year. Traveling between the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and Mount Desert Island in order to maximize the color in both...
by Don McGowan | Mar 25, 2020 | March 2020
In the lower stretches of the Oconaluftee River Valley, downstream from the confluence of Kephart Prong and Beech Flats Prong, and where all of the various branches – Kanati Fork, Bradley Fork, Straight Fork, and Raven Fork – have come together, there are...
