The High Capes at the “tiara”

Photo #1, of necessity wide-angled to get a view of the whole mountainside, looks somewhat to the right (south) of the last photo on the previous page, with which there is considerable overlap on the left. The diagonal ridge descending right to left in the centre of the photo is that seen here as a dry slide-type channel carved by descending waters from above. Near the top of that ridge and to its right is a large bare cliff face and at the very top of the mountain above it is a somewhat smaller bare cliff face that, for reasons that will soon become clearer, I dub the “tiara”. There is much of interest at the water level in this view as well, with large cave-like structures gouged into the rock cliffs behind a barrier tall enough that one would expect them to be reasonably well protected from erosion by waves. Perhaps the channels seen descending from above are responsible for these cavities, though it’s not entirely clear to me just how that would have worked. Again, the forest has been spectacularly successful on these slopes, reaching down nearly the entire mountain side, with only the last tens of metres bereft of trees.

Photo #2 moves further to the right, bringing the “tiara” to the centre of the photo and showing all of the interesting feature just above the water level. This view makes me wonder if a significant part of this cliff has not simply vanished, since the cliffs on either side imply that once there was land where now there is only an empty hole. As so often along this beautiful and interesting shore, more mysteries for the untrained layman to ponder…

[continued below]

Photo #3 looks at the same shore as photo #2, but from further south and adding a bit more of its southern portion. Here, the “tiara” finally looks like one. The long straight cut through the trees is shown on the topographical map as an unnamed brook, whose source is in a small pond perhaps 100 m (330 ft) beyond the edge of the summit. To the right of the brook is another, wider channel that takes a more circuitous route down the mountainside; perhaps that is now the current course of the brook? At magnification, it can be seen to have water flowing in its course, whereas what one can see of the brook’s channel is dry. In any case, judging by its width, it seems to now have the greater flow. What are clearly rock cliffs at the left of this view become mostly piles of rubble with embedded boulders and an occasional rock outcropping as one moves closer to the unnamed brook; it is indeed fortunate that the trees have such a strong foothold here, as otherwise this part of the mountainside looks like it could come crashing down in a landslide. The stalwart cliffs just above the water level are showing considerably less wear and tear than those further north in the previous photo.

Photo #4 looks more at the left part of photo #3, where the cliffs are still all solid rock; from this vantage point, the rock seems more prominent, but the forest has done quite well given what it had to work with. The cliff faces here are a mixture of pink and grey, which would likely appear more reddish had the lighting been brighter. Sadly, the haze on the mountainside conceals the details in the upper part of this photo.

[continued below]

Photo #5 is another view of the “tiara”, the sand-coloured rubble piles between it and the new channel, and that channel itself. From this vantage point, the straight brook bed is hard to make out; under high magnification, water can be again seen at the top of the mountainside above the new channel. A good-sized patch of grey sand/dirt/gravel can be seen at the right below another cliff face; patches like it have heretofore been missing from this coast south of “Sailor Brook Mountain South”.

Photo #6 is a final view of the coast below the “tiara”. The mouth of the unnamed brook is in the centre of the photo, where, under magnification, a trickle of water can be seen flowing over the rocks into the Gulf. In this view, the new channel appears to come down to the right of that trickle and then veer to the north after it reaches the rocks below. I see no water in the lower stretches of the new channel, even under magnification. I can also make out the head and front body of a dog in the rocks at the right of the photo above the water; magnification shows it’s just a peculiar assemblage of rocks, but without magnification, my (overly active?) imagination interprets it as a dog watching us pass by in the boat!