Views from the Northeast Mabou Road—Part One

From the Moloney farm, I drove to the end of the Blackstone Road, turned left onto the Cèilidh Trail (Highway 19), and proceeded to Hawleys Hill, where I turned onto the Northeast Mabou Road. 150 metres/yards down the road, I stopped for the views of Cape Mabou on this page, the first three of which form a panorama taken with a fairly wide-angled lens.

Photo #1 looks north of northeast along the road to the edge of Cape Mabou across the valley through which the Northeast Mabou River flows. The green fields of farms are at the left of the photo in the valley. Given that one is now considerably closer to the mountainside, more colour stands out, but a considerable amount of green leaves remain, while the trees near the summit appear bare. Occasional reds can be seen, but they are fairly rare.

Photo #2, which has a generous overlap with photo #1, looks off towards and beyond Glenora Falls; the “knob” as seen from the Smithville Road here reveals itself to be a ridge protruding from the Cape Mabou Plateau, seen to the left of the nearly bare tree in the centre of the photo.

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Photo #3, which has some overlap with photo #2, looks off to the north and northeast; the ridge in the centre of the photo is the “Black River Ridge” seen from the Blackstone Road and not part of Cape Mabou. The “mountains” in the far distance at the far right of the photo are part of the great central interior plateau that runs from Whycocomagh to Margaree Forks and lie on the far side of Lake Ainslie, though a few of the taller hills on the near side of Lake Ainslie merge into them. The utility poles in the centre of the photo mark the route of the Cèilidh Trail, which crosses from right to left below Hawleys Hill. The grasses in the foreground appear frost-struck and the short red tree is clearly past its prime. The Northeast Mabou River valley between Mabou Mountain and the Cape Mabou Highlands is wide open to receive the strong winds that blow up the Mabou River from the Gulf of St Lawrence along the southern edge of Cape Mabou, as this photo from Hunters Road in West Mabou shows: Hawleys Hill is notorious as a bad spot to be in during a winter snow storm.

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Photo #4 is a close-up of the “knob” near Glenora Falls that better shows the state of the colours in this area of Cape Mabou. It, too, confirms the pre-peak nature of the colours, with lots of greens, some lemony yellow-greens, and lots of oranges. The paucity of bright reds is striking.

Photo #5 is a close-up of the hillside below the mini-summit at the right of photo #1; this is pretty much the same story as in photo #4, though more bare trees at the summit are present here.