New England Blogs

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

The Golden Road, Millinocket Maine

The Golden Road is a logging road which runs from Millinocket Maine to the Canadian Border. The road is dirt in some places, and paved in others. The paved areas of the road are laden with numerous potholes, so care needs to be taken as you travel along.
We traveled the Golden Road this weekend in search of moose....as the land along this road has a very high moose population and moose are frequently seen feeding in some of the grassy ponds and boggy areas along the sides of the road.
Our first trip along this road was after breakfast on Saturday morning. It was raining at the time, but the rain was not going to stop us from our quest for moose. We spotted a cow (a female moose) along one of the boggy areas, and I quickly pulled over. By the time I got my camera ready and focused, she had darted into the woods. Only one person in my vehicle got a shot off. She rolled the rear window down and took a quick shot out the window. It worked!
We got lucky later in the day when we returned to the Golden Road after lunch. The rain had ended and we were feeling confident we would find our elusive moose. We pulled into the parking area at Compass Pond (a pond along the Golden Road), and walked up and over the hill to the pond, and low and behold, a bull moose was out for a swim!



We watched and photographed him for about 45 minutes. He was a long distance away across the pond, and the 300mm lens I have clearly wasn't long enough. But, it was exciting to see him in his own natural habitat and I was happy to be able to make some behavioral images. (Most of my moose images have been taken along the sides of the road in Vermont)

He eventually swam ashore:



And soon went back into the woods:



The next day we took one final trip down the Golden Road, just before we were to begin the 7 hour drive home. We spotted two more cows who were off in the distance in a boggy area. Although they were so far away, I still was pleased to be able to include them in a landscape shot.



More images from Baxter State Park will be shared tomorrow.

2 comments:

  1. Soo happy you saw moose!!! Love the pictures..looks like you had a great time!

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  2. I envy you! I wish I could get up there and take the time to see a moose. Every time I go to Millinocket, I never see one.

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