Panorama from the Second Highest Look-Off
on North Mountain

From where the previous photos were taken, the Cabot Trail soon crosses the Grande-Anse River, leaving its lower valley, and ascends to the summit of North Mountain along the side of a “canyon” carved by a tributary of the Grande-Anse River, unnamed on the topographical map, that rises there. In the narrow section along the “canyon”, one is not allowed to stop (and I had a following car); it was there that I saw the brightest red tree ablaze in the sun that I’ve seen anywhere this year (and possibly any year)—it was truly magnificent! I was some bummed that I didn’t have a chance to photograph it! I continued over the summit and down the other side to the second highest look-off, which offers a fine view of the range of mountains running northeast out to the northern end of the island, the North Aspy River valley down below, and South Mountain on the far side of the valley. This page looks at that panorama.

Photo #1 is a fairly wide-angled view of the panorama from the second look-off descending North Mountain. The majority of the foliage in the relatively sheltered valley of the North Aspy River is deciduous, though great stands of evergreens are interspersed. The road seen crossing the photo is the Cabot Trail; the sides of North Mountain are in the foreground at the left; the slopes of South Mountain are at the right and continue well beyond the far right outside the scope of this photo. The next four photos are telephoto views taken with Big Bertha that form a ponorama and examine this lovely scene in much more detail.

[continued below]

Photo #2 looks along the slopes of North Mountain as they run to the northeast along the Aspy Fault; only a very small piece of the Cape North Massif itself is visible here, just right of centre behind Sams Mountain, the darker triangular-shaped mountain right of centre. The rock cliffs left of centre identify Tenerife Mountain. The lower point at the far right is the southern end of St Paul Island in the Cabot Strait. The capricious sun lights up and obscures the slopes at random, but those in the foreground proved to be a good representation of the state of the foliage seen all over this panorama, much of which is obscured by the distance.

Photo #3 overlaps with photo #2 and looks at Aspy Bay off the coast. North Harbour, the water at the far right, is the mouth of the North Aspy River, which flows invisibly through this scene; a portion of North Harbour Beach can be seen at the far right of the photo glistening in the sunlight. Although they look rather faded here, the foliage actually is the same colour as that seen at the lower left of the photo close at hand.

[continued below]

Photo #4 overlaps with photo #3 and looks at the slopes of the unnamed mountain at the far right as the Cabot Trail climbs up it towards Cape North Village; I will refer to that mountain as “Sunrise Mountain” as the locality of Sunrise is on its far side, where an informal look-off offers fine views, some of which will be seen on a following page. At the lower left, at the base of North Mountain, you can see a bit of the North Aspy River as it passes through the Big Intervale Campground just off the Cabot Trail. Also notice the bright red tree at the side of the river in the lower right. As can be seen, the views from the Cabot Trail in this stretch, much of which lies outside the park boundaries, are cut off by the close proximity of the trees, though, travelling in the opposite direction, the spots which can be seen here offer fine views of North Mountain.

Photo #5 overlaps with photo #4 and looks across to the summit of “Sunrise Mountain”, which is on the north side of the Middle and South Aspy Rivers—South Mountain is further to the right and outside the scope of this photo–and down below to Big Intervale. A couple of contrarian yellow trees are visible here, one in the lower right and another to its left right of centre. Particularly on the upper slopes of the mountain, plenty of bare trees are in evidence, while the mostly orange-brown colours of the others set the tone of the entire scene.

It is interesting to compare the very foreshortened distances seen in each of the last four photos with the corresponding distances in photo #1. Things are not nearly as close as they appear!