Tag: Hidden Falls

The Cliffs of Fundy Geopark

At last! Beautiful weather. Today we drove along the Cliffs of Fundy, which was on the opposite side of the water from Burntcoat Head. It was an all-day affair, but we had a great time.

Thomas Cove

Greg wanted to hike one of the trails at Thomas Cove. This turned out to be harder than we had expected. Either the trail dumped us out on a sandy beach with no idea which way we were supposed to go, or the trail was virtually invisible. All the warnings about poisonous plants didn’t help.

This is not the kind of trail I am used to hiking.

The views were beautiful, though.

Five Islands Provincial Park

After a quick stop at the Welcome Center and a quick tour of the World War II tower, we headed to Five Islands Provincial Park.

If you zoom in, you can see tiny people walking in the distance. That’s how much of the seafloor was exposed.
Do you see that little rock separated from the others? That is called Old Wife, and it was our destination.

Most of the beaches in Canada seem to be filled with small rocks. That was the case with Five Islands Provincial Park as well, but as the tide withdrew, red sand and large slabs of limestone were exposed.

Where we could, we walked along the sand and limestone slabs.

These limestone slabs made walking fairly easy. Thousands of little snails clung to their crevices.

Getting to Old Wife was not as easy as we had been led to believe by the employee at the visitor center.

Between the rocks, the seaweed, and the ebbing tide, we had quite a challenge!

The trek was worth it, though. After we climbed over more rocks and seaweed, we were treated to the view below. According to the employee at the visitor center, these rocks were once part of Pangea. The other half of them is in Morocco.

Greg, standing beside Old Wife with Moose Island in the background.

Five Islands Lighthouse Park

Next up on our drive along the Cliffs of Fundy Geopark was Five Islands Lighthouse Park.

In the photo above, you can see a few of the five islands.

The Fundy Geological Museum

Our next stop was the Fundy Geological Museum, where we got to view the different types of rock that tell the story of Nova Scotia’s geological history.

On the way out of town, I took the photo below. I thought it was pretty, and it reminded me of the beach.

Ottawa House Museum

Next, we stopped by Ottawa House Museum, mostly just to get a picture and see what it looked like. We didn’t go in. By this time, it was getting late, and we still had to drive over an hour back to the campground.

The view of Partridge Island from the lawn of Ottawa House.

One of the many lighthouses along The Cliffs of Fundy is not far from Ottawa House Museum, so we decided to make a quick stop there. We should have known better. Canada is exceptionally good at hiding its lighthouses.

After driving down a gravel road for several kilometers and reaching a dead end, then turning around and driving all the way back again, we finally found the road that should take us to the lighthouse. Unfortunately, the road was little more than a rarely-used overgrown track. I’m not sure our truck could have navigated it. Needless to say, we didn’t attempt it.

On the way back to the campground, we were treated to this pretty view of Partridge Island.

Hidden Falls

We made one final stop before calling it a day. When we pulled in to the tiny parking lot for Hidden Falls, we were the only ones there.

After a short 15-minute hike, we arrived at the falls. The pictures really don’t do it justice, although I find that true of falls in general.

All in all, it was a great day. We recorded 14,000 steps, and by the end of the day, I felt every one of them.

Schwabacher Landing

On our way into the park on Wednesday, we encountered another gaggle of cars, which we instantly knew meant there was wildlife to see.

It turned out to be a bull moose, who was feeling trapped by all the tourists. He kept darting one way and then another, trying to find some way past all the people. He finally managed to dash across the street into a field.

Our first stop of the day was Schwabacher Landing, which is a popular location for taking photographs of the Teton mountains.

Maybe we got there too late in the morning, but I did not like any of the photos I took. The mountains looked like cardboard cutouts, and they were overshadowed by the foreground.

Jenny Lake

Next, we headed to Jenny Lake. We purchased tickets for the ferry ride across the lake, where we hiked to Hidden Falls.

My photos of the falls turned out terribly, but I managed to capture a photo of this artist painting the falls en plein air. He was painting in oils and was quite good. I was kind of jealous, to be honest.

After Hidden Falls, we continued our hike up to Inspiration Point.

Yes, I actually climbed up the side of that rock cliff!

Coming down was another story. At one point, I sat down because I was so terrified. Some gentleman at the bottom offered to come up and assist me, but I managed to complete it by myself. Yay!

The size of the ferry boat on the lake in the photo below should give you an idea of how high up we were. The sign Greg is standing behind says Inspiration Point el. 7200 ft. 

After climbing down from Inspiration Point, we chose to hike around the lake rather than take the ferry boat back.

Another hiker asked if she could join us on the hike back since she was worried about encountering a bear on her own.

On the hike back to the Jenny Lake visitor center, we got to see another moose. Unfortunately, he was shy and didn’t want to have his picture taken.

Shortly after that, someone else we encountered on the trail told us that they had seen a moose at Moose Pond, so we took a short detour to check that out.

It was a beautiful day for a hike, but by the time we finally got back to the Jenny Lake visitor center, we were beat. Greg said he was more tired from that hike than he had been from any other hike we’ve ever taken.

Scenic Boat Tour

Back at the car, we inhaled our lunch (it was 3:00 p.m. by this point). Then we decided to head over to Jackson Lake Lodge to see whether we could buy tickets for a scenic boat tour.

The girl at the concierge desk told us that the very last scenic boat tour for the season was leaving at 5:15. We booked our tickets and then headed to the bar to relax until it was time to head to the marina.

Five-fifteen is a terrible time to take a scenic boat tour if the goal is to get lovely photos of the Teton mountains rising over the water. The first 45 minutes of the tour involved traveling directly into the sun, which made taking photos of the mountains impossible. By the time the boat captain finally turned around to head back to the marina, the sun was setting behind the mountains, leaving them in shadow.

Despite that, I did enjoy the tour, and I learned a lot. Our tour guide was delightful.

Sunset

Since the sun was setting when we arrived back at the marina, Greg and I quickly hopped in the car and headed to another popular spot for taking photos of the mountains.

It was a beautiful sunset, but I don’t feel like I got very good photos of it.

I love all of the beautiful fall colors in the foreground of this photo. Fall has definitely come to the Tetons!

We encountered another traffic jam on the way back to the campground. This time it was a herd of bison on the side of the road.

When we finally arrived back at the campground at 9:00 p.m., we promptly collapsed into bed.