“Big Head Mountain” from a bit further south

The rocky crest seen in photo #4 on the previous page is here seen at the left of the photo, together with the higher structure that was hidden behind it from that perspective, but has now popped into view from a more southerly vantage point. This peak is the western edge of the structure seen in photo #1 on the previous page. Below it, the forest has definitely thinned out. The uncolonized band of gravel/dirt/rubble below the crests at the left is much more visible in this photo, with patches continuing to the far left; a similar band is found below the peak at the right and continuing to the far right. Another cave, not the same one as seen in the last photo on the previous page, though it has its rounded shape, is left of centre, well above the water, with an interesting rock overhang and a path of gravel and rubble leading down from it.

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Photos #2 and #3 are two views of the great crest on the southwestern flank of “Big Head Mountain”. Photo #2 is a moderately wide-angled view, while photo #3 is more of a telephoto view from a slightly different vantage point.

In photo #2, the bands of dirt/gravel/rubble below the great crest first catch the eye; then, one remarks on the large number of free-standing boulders all over the slopes and particularly part way down towards the water. In this view, the great crest itself appears to have the same twin-peak profile of Bear Hill and “Lowland Cove Twin Peaks”, though those two are forested and this one is mostly bare; however, this profile is an effect of this vantage point, as the crest actually rises up to the rear peak and then falls off, as in a very flattened ∧ shape, as photo #5 below shows.

In photo #3, the view is again misleadingly twin-peakish and needs to be corrected by looking at photo #1 on the previous page. At high magnification, the highly eroded nature of the crest becomes apparent; much of the rock outcroppings have been fractured and turned into boulders, rocks, small stones and gravel, leaving very little unbroken cliff. Given its high position above the water and openness on two sides to the winds off the Gulf, this is not surprising. Below the crest, however, the cliffs seem to be in significantly better shape, though they too display heavy fracture lines. The uppermost vegetation is stunted; I see no trees growing there, but only low, ground-hugging brush and bushes, with an occasional patch of grass. Indeed, the only real trees I see anywhere on this flank are at the left above the cliffs above the water and there aren’t many of those; the rest is either dwarf trees or brush. This is truly inhospitable terrain!

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Photo #4, taken a bit south of the mouth of Lower Delaneys Brook, looks along the coast to the north; the great crest is to the upper far right and outside the scope of this photo. The capricious cloud-blocked sunlight paints the terrain in a palette of bright, dim, and dark shadow, bringing out some details and hiding others. In this view, one can make out the course of a currently dry brook from the gravel/dirt/rubble patch below the crest in the centre down to the cave at the far left and from there down to the Gulf below.

Photo #5, a telephoto view from a bit south of the mouth of Upper Delaneys Brook, takes a final close-up look at the great crest on “Big Head Mountain”. The lower peak at the left is dark and that’s not solely due to the sunlight; at high magnification, it appears to have a covering of grass or moss—it’s hard to tell which; moreover, the gravel/dirt/rubble below and to the left appears to be of darker material, as if some coal dust were intermixed with the lighter coloured material below the central peak. Note too the reëmergence of the forest further inland at the upper far right of the photo, apparently better protected against the winds off the Gulf.