Views from the MacKinnon Road

The Parish Hall in Glencoe Mills is on the southeast side of the four corners, on a roughly triangular lot (the topographical map has it on the wrong side of the road!) caused by the oblique way the Upper Glencoe Road crosses the Glencoe Road. At least according to Google Maps, the MacKinnon Road doesn’t begin until a Y at about 1.2 km (0.7 mi) from the Parish Hall, where the Upper Glencoe Road follows the right fork and the MacKinnon Road begins at the left fork. Small tributary brooks come down off the hills, part of the geographical feature the topographical map labels as The Big Ridge, and cross the MacKinnon Road at several points along its course, joining together and entering the Mull River east of the Glencoe Road not too far from the Parish Hall in Glencoe Mills; the last of the brooks is the main branch of the Mull River (the crossing is often a bit washed out but easily passable with care), which rises just off the Dunakin Mountain Road in Dunakin. The MacKinnon Road ends on the Whycocomagh Port Hood Road, near the boundary between Glencoe Mills and Dunakin. This is nearly always a lovely drive in the fall (and one I make frequently during other seasons)—peaceful back country solitude at its best.

Photo #1 was taken beside a green field that has left an area where there is a fine open view to the northeast of the hills in Upper Glencoe. The forest here is mixed and, in this wide-angled view, doesn’t appear all that colourful.

Photo #2, a detail of the same scene as in photo #1, but taken with a much longer focal length, however, corrects that impression; in addition to the red tree in the foreground (still changing colours on its lower half), numerous other reds and oranges and yellows appear on the hillside along with the greens of evergreens and some unchanged or changing deciduous trees. As well, several bare trees are seen as ashy greys amongst the other colours. A fine view on a fine day.

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Photo #3 looks back along the MacKinnon Road, where a canopy of overarching trees makes for a picturesque fall view. These trees are clearly in the very early stages of change, though not exhibiting the colours seen on the hillside in the other direction.

Photo #4 was shot looking up at the red branches in the tree in the upper centre right of photo #3; the residual chlorophyll makes the leaves a very dark red and the photo reveals that a number of leaves have only begun to change. The leaves of the adjacent trees remain resolutely green.