Views from near the automated light

From the stake at the end of the trail on the inner edge of the coastal plain, it is a short walk across that plain to the automated light on Cape St Lawrence. I suspect most hikers make their way there first, as I have done each time I have been here. The photos on this page were taken from near the automated light.

Photo #1 looks back along the path I had taken from the trail’s end. Bear Hill is at the right in the distance and the trail ends at the far right of the photo beneath a small rise there. The coastal plain runs inland along the coast, but soon reaches its limit at the edge of the forest that extends across the full width of the photo. The coastal plain is a mixture of rocks and grass, the latter well fertilized by the moose and free range cattle and horses that frequent the area, which makes it a lush area for wildflowers, in spite of its highly exposed position at the northwest corner of the coast, where it gets the full brunt of both north and the prevailing west winds.

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Photo #2 is a close-up of the area along the north coast. For a view of this area from the waters below, see the photos on this page, which will give you a better idea of the height of the land above the water here. One of the things I had hoped to do on this trip was explore the northern coast in hopes of finding a path to the rocky outcropping above the “funnel” seen previously from the look-off that, from the water, looked plausible, but here, given the dense forest, seems much less so.

Photo #3 looks to the right of photo #2, with which it has some overlap, at the remainder of the rounded ridge above Cape St Lawrence. The coastal plain at the Cape is littered with piles of stones like those seen in this photo.

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Photo #4 shows the automated light as it looked in 2013. When I returned to Meat Cove, I was told that this light replaces the previous one, destroyed in a ferocious storm in 2011. I thought it looked different, but attributed that to maintenance and a not too accurate memory. A photo of the previous one can be seen here. The equipment at base of light is mine—my indispensable three-legged stool on which I sit whenever I need to catch my breath and my prized eagle-head walking stick, a gift of friends, which has saved me from numerous spills.

Photo #5 is a close-up of the rock face along the northern shore just past the automated light. This rock contains seams of gypsum rock, better seen from below in this photo.

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Photo #6 looks at the fairly well-preserved foundations of a building once at Cape St Lawrence, From the photo shown on this web page, my guess is that these are the foundations of the manned light house shown there, constructed in 1889. The cape was inhabited into the 20th century and had several buildings including a school house, photos of which were on display at the Meat Cove Welcome Centre in 2013.

The middle ground of photo #7 shows the remains of another building on the Cape. The platform of the current light is at the far left of the photo; to its right is what looks to be the platform of a previous automated light, though that platform was also there in my 2009 photo of the automated light, so it isn’t its platform, but an older one.