Views from the east side of “Mount Glencoe”

From where I stopped on the Upper Southwest Mabou Road, I continued on to Long Johns Bridge, where I stopped, as almost always, for photos, a selection of which appear on the third page of this essay. I then continued along the Glencoe Road and ascended to the top of what I call “Mount Glencoe”; just over the top, a short distance below the summit and before reaching the white house on the west side of the road, the terrain provides a rare open view to the north. It is from here that the photos on this page were taken.

Photo #1 is a wide-angled view of what one sees to the north from this spot. As is obvious, that vantage point is constrained on both the left and the right by nearby hills that block the more distant features of interest. I will reserve a description of this view to the photos below, the last three of which form a connected panorama panning over the terrain with a long focal length for better detail. I often stop here to admire the views, but the exceptional clarity of the air this day resulted in better photos than I have ever heretofore obtained.

Photo #2 looks to the left of the view in photo #1 at the side of the hill where the fall colours shine brightly in the morning sunlight. The leaves are considerably further along than those seen earlier on this beautiful morning, with only a few leaves retaining their greens.

[continued below]

Photo #3 is the left portion of the view seen in photo #1. The communications tower left of centre marks that location as the Southwest Ridge, also known as Mabou Ridge. At some point to the right, not easily discerned even in the original but likely about a quarter of the way in from the right, the summits of Cape Mabou appear as Southwest Ridge descends to the Mull River; in this view, the Southwest Ridge and Cape Mabou seem to run together, but that is not, of course, the case on the ground. The middle ridge is that above the Old Mull River Road, also known as the Brook Village Road, which runs parallel to it on its far side; for lack of a better name, I have dubbed it the “Miramichi Ridge”, as its northeastern end is in Miramichi, south of Brook Village. The nearest ridge rises above the Upper Glencoe Road in Glencoe Mills, which also runs parallel to it on its far side.

Photo #4 moves the view to the right, overlapping photo #3; at least in the original, the contours of Cape Mabou can be clearly seen as it runs to the right. The mottled hillsides nearer the camera indicate that the trees have clearly changed, with numerous reds, faded by the distance, in the mix; I strongly suspect that, were one as close to them as to those in photo #2, they would be equally colourful.

[continued below]

Photo #5 completes the panorama, with Cape Mabou in the far distance descending towards Inverness. Many tamaracks (larches) are visible in this panorama, some of which are also in the process of changing colours, for needles on tamaracks turn yellow in late fall and eventually drop off altogether as winter becomes spring (I’m told that this process occurs much sooner in Cape Breton than it did in New York State, where the golden yellow needles often remained on the trees until the snows began to melt in the spring).