Crystal Springs
After eight spectacular hikes in Acadia National Park in Maine, today's jaunt was a quiet refreshing departure: no high mountains, no sweeping vistas, no angry ocean surfs. This peaceful little area is basically a group of corn fields with a smattering of lovely ponds. But it's beautiful all the same. Using this map we parked off Califon Road (the entrance to the park is unsigned and on an unnamed road), and headed along the white trail in a counter clock-wise direction. It should be noted that along this trail there are only about two or three blazes, the first appears far to the north within a tiny wooded area separating two fields. But it's impossible to get lost here. At the southwest corner of White we visited the two western ponds before heading south to circle the southern corn field, where bays of hay had been left out in the field. Completing the lower loop we headed back to the car before first visiting two of the other ponds southeast of the parking area.

Total distance hiked today was 3.5 miles in just over 2 hours.

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Sign at the parking area


Canada geese

Unpicked rotting corn!


Lovely cornfield

Goldfinch?

Flattened field

Very few blazes

 

Overgrown path


Boundary wall

 



Barbed wire

Beautiful dragonfly

[Photo by Laura]
 


Closer view of dragonfly

Cutting between fields


Approaching stables
 


Horse stables


Horses

Shy chipmunk
 



Some fall foliage

Much unpicked corn

Bird with fruit
 


Hunting chair

Abandoned railing

Tractor tracks

Pond
 


Cat tail

Fall color!

Bat house

View up into it
 


[Photo by Laura]

Abandoned house

View inside

Laura ...
 


... and pond

Beautiful ...

... wildflowers

Another pond
 


Beautiful red grass

Fruit

Tractors in another corn field

Bales in field
 


[Photo by Laura]

Close-up of bale

Grasshopper

 



Kestrel?

Jet airliner

More bales
 


Tiny insect in flower


Thrasher

 


Small creek

Gorgeous moth


Third pond
 


Hatching insects

Beaver activity

Dragonflies preparing to mate

Brook
 



Third pond from other side


 

Photographs and content copyright © Dan Balogh
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