Late Season on Harbor Mountain

Mostly sunny early, becoming mostly cloudy with scattered showers during the afternoon. Light to moderate wind. Temperatures in the 40s.

With clear skies this morning, I expected to see some frost when I stepped outside. Perhaps the skies didn’t clear until not long before sunrise, since I didn’t see any evidence of frost, even in the shaded areas.

The sunny skies wouldn’t hold, but I didn’t know that when I headed out this morning.

I have been concerned about getting up Harbor Mountain to take care of ibuttons before observing work starts and the gates close. The gates close around the first of November, and yesterday I learned observing work will start later than that.

I also wanted to get up and look for an apparently rare (or at least rarely documented) moss that has been collected on Harbor Mountain.

At the Harbor Mountain trailhead parking lot, my car thermometer was reporting 37F outside.

Since the habitat where moss had been collected was reported as “above treeline, mostly slopes of exposed rocks in heathers”, I thought it might be worth going straight up the bowl and checking rocks along the way.

Mostly what I found on the rocks were probably Racomitrium in various stages of development.

I continued to check rocks along the trail, but didn’t spend too much time at it. I had initially thought I would go to the talus north and west of the summit ridge. By the time I reached the departure point for the main trail, I was also considering going to the talus fields south of the summit ridge (perhaps motivated in part by the opportunity to be more in the sun).

Skies had been mostly clear when I started up the trail. By the time I was making my decision about which way to go, some clouds had developed nearby. Over the remainder of my outing, they mostly continued to build. There was even a bit of snow/ice mixed in with rain (though fortunately not much rain).

I walked a slow loop looking checking rocks, both loose talus and larger boulders or bedrock outcrops. I made plenty of observations and collections of mosses and liverworts, but didn’t find anything that looked promising for the moss I was hoping to find.

I stayed near the top of the talus slope on my way up. It looked to me like deer use that route from time to time as well. There were several clusters of droppings and a bit of a trail.

I didn’t see any voles, but did observe plenty of vole trails and some vole scat.

The wind was coming out of the northwest. Between the breeze, clouds, and cool temperatures, my hands got cold if I stayed in one place for too long. When the rain started, it was even more motivation to stop only briefly. It didn’t help that I hadn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon, so it was pushing 24 hours since my last food.

I saw a some patches of blueberries with good numbers of berries. Last month I might have been tempted to pick them, but the ones I tasted today were very soft and had little or no flavor. What flavor they did have wasn’t what I would describe as pleasant.

By the time I was starting back, I noticed my legs feeling fatigued. I hadn’t pushed hard, but I had been out for over 3 hours. I was also carrying a pack loaded more camera gear than I usually have. I had entertained some thoughts of doing macro photography with my mirrorless camera, and packed accordingly. I didn’t end up doing any, though.