Summer Adventures - Rangeley, Maine
Our second summer adventure was to Rangeley, Maine for a family reunion. The week not only provided precious time with extended family, but hiking, and time in and on the water. And for me, personally, it offered an epiphany on my evolving perceptions of mountains.
Growing up in California, the San Gabriel mountains towered over my daily life and frequent family camping life in the High Sierras. Mountains rose abruptly and dramatically to heights of 9000 ft and up. They are rugged and rough. No gently rising slopes. They are formidable granite giants.
Over 40 years ago when I first visited Rangeley, the mountains didn’t seem like “official” mountaines to me - more like rolling hills. For me, to “be” a mountain you had to be rocky, see granite. On this visit, I could see how my perceptions had evolved.
After a number of years in the midwest and at the Morton Arboretum, I have learned to see deeper into the whole forest and what makes up a mountain. On our first hike, I saw that the granite was still part of Rangeley mountains, only softened from thousands of years of glacial action. These softer mountains reveal the granite in river gorges and waterfalls, and under forests of coniferous trees and mosses. I am now appreciating these “softer” mountains and all that grows on them.
Rangeley Lake, Maine
View from Saddleback Mt (elevation 4121ft). We didn’t make it to the top! Instead, along the way we explored wildflowers.
Birch forest growing on granite, covered in ferns, mosses and lichens. What an incredible, busy world!
Canadian bunchberry, Cornus canadensis
Canadian bunchberry bloom
Orange hawkweed, Pilosella aurantiaca
Tansy, Tanacetum vulgare
Sweet Joe Pieweed
Blazing Stars
That beautiful granite along Small’s Falls!
Rangeley Sunset.
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