Seneca Rocks

Once the weather finally cleared and Meghan was feeling a bit better, we headed a few hours east, to Seneca Rocks, West Virginia. This is an old-school traditional climbing area, where a huge fin of rock juts out of the landscape between the rolling hills.

Seneca Rocks, West Virginia

The climbing here is different from a lot of other places we've been to, in that instead of several cliffs 40-100 feet tall, this is one big cliff broken up by several big ledges. Most of the climbing is multi-pitch, meaning that the climb is longer than one ropelength (a "pitch"), so instead of climbing the entire route then lowering back to the ground, one must stop partway, build an anchor in the wall, and bring up your climbing partner before continuing up the climb. This process is repeated until you get to the ledge or summit where the climb finishes. This makes the climbing here more committing, and requires taking more equipment up with you, as well as water and snacks, and in many cases, and bags, shoes, and additional clothes you brought with you, as you won't be coming back down to the same spot you started from. All this extra stuff encumbers you and adds extra weight to haul up the rock, so generally you climb easier stuff. This is fun climbing though - maybe less demanding of muscle strength, but much more adventurous. The climbing is less physical, but much more mentally challenging, as you run into situations where what you need to do isn't hard, but it's a bit scary.

Meghan and I standing on the South Summit of Seneca Rocks

The easiest way to explain this is probably to just show you, so we strapped a camera to my helmet and took a video while we climbed. We linked together 3 climbs to get from the trail to the south summit - Banana (1 pitch, 5.7), Debbie (1 pitch, 5.7), and Gunsight to South Peak (3 pitches, 5.4) (the other dude in the video is a guy named Parin that we climbed with that day). Check it out - and tell us what you think in the comments section below.

Ghetto-style Helmet-Cam

Video - Climbing at Seneca Rocks!

Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio...

After arriving back at mainland Nova Scotia, we made our way south, to Halifax. Here we were happy to meet up with Roscoe, an old university classmate and roommate of mine. He gave us the grand tour of the city (during which we completely forgot to take any photos), and then we went out for a couple of drinks at a pub downtown. It was great catching up on what we'd each been up to since seeing each other in person last, about 5 years ago.

Roscoe and I in Halifax

The next morning, we headed out to Peggy's Cove to catch the sunrise. It was quite spectacular. I'm glad we got out there early in the morning though - as we were leaving they were setting up the parking lot for coach busses full of cruise ship passengers, about 8 or 10 of which we passed on the highway headed there.

Sunrise at Peggy's Cove

Early morning light at Peggy's Cove

More early morning light at Peggy's Cove

From Peggy's Cove, we headed across Nova Scotia to the Bay of Fundy, and into New Brunswick. At the head of the bay is Hopewell Rocks, where the world's highest tides are very apparent. When we first got there, it was just a couple of hours after high tide. Since the tides run about 12 hours between high and low, the water level was pretty high. We hiked around in the rain for a bit, then went back to the van and cooked up some dinner. We returned to the same spot just over 2 hours after our original visit, and the tide had gone way down. We were able to walk out on the mud flats where just a couple of hours earlier there had been 6-8 feet of water. It's really something neat to see, even in the rain.

Hopewell Rocks a few hours after high tide

The same spot 2 hours and 9 minutes later

Meghan and the flower-pot rocks

More flower-pot rocks

At this point it the sun was setting on a Wednesday night, and Meghan's two sisters were both planning on being at home in Ohio for the weekend, so we decided to make a push on the driving so we could be there too. We drove as far as the New Brunswick/Maine border, and stopped for the night just after crossing. Thursday we drove through Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and into Pennsylvania (it sounds like a lot, but they're mostly little states). Friday we got up and drove through Pennsylvania and Ohio, and arrived at Meghan's parents' place mid-afternoon, much to her mom's surprise.

Family photo with the whole gang

We planed to spend just the weekend in Ohio, but the weather at our next destination was poor, and Meghan came down with a cold, so we opted to just hang out in Ohio for a few extra days. Finally the weather cleared, as did Meghan's symptoms, so off we went, to West Virginia…

The Rock

(Sorry for the long time between posts - we're way behind but will try to get caught up soon)

After visiting PEI, we headed east and north, to North Sydney, Nova Scotia, to the ferry terminal for the boats headed for Newfoundland. In the past we haven't needed reservations for ferries, so we haven't bothered, but apparently getting there on Saturday night and planning to be on the Sunday morning ferry was something that was definitely not going to happen. No worries - we just made our reservation for Monday morning instead, and took a day and a half to explore the Cape Breton Highlands National Park. We did a few hikes there taking in the waterfalls, old growth forests, and beautiful seashores.

Seashore at Cape Breton Highlands National Park

Maple Leaf at the base of a waterfall in Cape Breton Highlands

Monday morning came, and we were parked in line, ready to board the ferry. Our departure wasn't until 11:30 a.m., but they loaded us on at 9:30. The boat was big and pretty nice, but Piton had to stay in the van down on one of the vehicle decks, and we weren't allowed down there once the ship was at sea. The crossing is scheduled to be 4-6 hours, depending on the boat and how rough the seas were, and on this trip it took us about 6 hours to cross the Cabot Strait. Unfortunately, the winds were really strong, and the seas rough, so we weren't able to make it into the harbour under those condition. This meant that we got to cruise up and down the coast, in total darkness, in rough seas, for an extra 6 hours or so. Oh that was fun. We did eventually get to Port-Aux-Basque though, docking around midnight and actually getting the van off the ship around 1 a.m. It was a long day. We'd been told by some truckers that the only road north, just outside of town, would likely be closed due to the high winds. Trains have literally been blown off the tracks in that area, the winds get so strong. That was ok, we were ready for bed anyways. Maybe it would have been better to have had reservations for that Sunday crossing…

Tuesday morning we travelled north, passing through Corner Brook on our way up to Gros Morne National Park. This is where we spent most of our time on Newfoundland. The park is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of the geology. Several hundred million years ago, the European Tectonic Plate collided with the North American Plate, and the compression of the plates formed the Appalachian Mountains. Most often when two plates collide, there is a subduction zone, where one plate dives down under the other melting in with the earth's mantle, but in this part of Newfoundland, one plate was pushed up on top of the other, bringing some of the mantle rock with it. When the plates then moved back apart, creating the Atlantic Ocean, some of the rock from the mantle was scraped off the bottom of the plate and left on the earth's surface. This rock is called Peridotite, and occurs in the tablelands of Gros Morne National Park. It was here that scientists were able to help prove the Theory of Plate Tectonics.

Parks Canada guide on our tour of the Tablelands

The Tablelands

Serpentine - a mineral reaction on the Peridotite

Gros Morne isn't just the tablelands though, the Long Range Mountains run through the park, in which some deep fjords were carved many years ago. Western Brook Pond was once one of these fjords, but has since then been cut off from the ocean, making it a freshwater body, and therefore a "pond" instead of a "fjord"; it's an inland lake with massive sheer cliffs flanking it's sides. Gros Morne is also situated on the Straight of Belle Isle, the ocean straight separating Newfoundland from mainland Canada. The seashores here are also a spectacular sight to behold, with volcanic rock formations, cliffs overlooking the water, caves along the shoreline, and sea stacks rising up out of the water. The coastal bogs are also home to a lot of wildlife.

The Seashore in Gros Morne National Park

Seascape at Gros Morne

Boardwalk leading to Western Brook Pond

After a few days of hiking, we decided to continue our drive north, and went all the way up to L'Anse Aux Meadows, a National Historic Site. It was here, contrary to popular belief, that the first Europeans came to North America and established a settlement. The Vikings came here, led by the someLief Eriksson, son of Eric the Red. They built houses, even an iron forge, and lived there for a while, 450 years before Christopher Columbus was even born. We didn't get to see any of that though. The visitor centre, contrary to their published literature stating they would be open for another two weeks, had closed its doors for the season the day before we got there. It was freezing cold and pouring rain, and we didn't know which trails would take us to see what we wanted, so we wandered around for a while, but didn't find anything before giving up and heading back to the warm, dry van. Sorry, we didn't take any photos of all that excitement.

We headed back south to Gros Morne again, and driving along the coastal bog early one morning spotted a small herd of Caribou. They spend their summer up in the high country, escaping the heat and the bugs, then come down to the coastal lowlands in the winter where it's a little warmer and the food is more plentiful. This group had come down a bit early, but we were happy to see them. We slowly made our way out through the bog, inching closer and closer over a period of about two hours. It's a wide open bog, so they certainly saw us coming, but we took our time, and showed that we weren't any threat, and didn't get too close. They didn't seem to mind. Watching them feed, play, and rest out in their natural habitual was really special.

Caribou grazing in the coastal bog

Bull Caribou

Cow Moose in Gros Morne

We had plans of heading over to the east side of Newfoundland as well, and heading up to Fogo Island (which contrary to the theory of plate tectonics, the Flat Earth Society believes is one of the five corners of the Earth), but were finding from our tourism literature that almost everything was closed for the season, with very few visitors like us still left on the island. We instead headed back south to the ferry, crossing again back to the mainland. The ferry crossing back was pretty rough, I think more rough than usual, because 3 or 4 times we definitely heard a huge crash as dishes in the ship's cafeteria apparently went flying and smashed on the floor. We made it across in about 6 hours though, without any extra delays.

Getting to see the caribou, not having to put up with any of the bugs, and seeing "The Rock" in its fall colours was amazing, but we think we may have to go back again another day, to see some more of the stuff we missed. I would definitely recommend visiting Newfoundland for anyone looking to plan a vacation in Canada.

Fall Colours in Newfoundland