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| Western Brook Pond Waterfall |
In between rain drops, we've managed to explore a fairly good portion of Gros Morne (Large Mountain Standing Alone) National Park, here on Newfoundland. One of the perks of all the rain has been that the waterfalls sure do look great!
Here’s a synopsis of our outings:
Our first major hike was to Green Gardens. This is a 7 mile hike that takes you to bluffs, overlooking the coast. Very pretty views, and there are steps that lead down to a beach. It was a fun, but tiring hike, with about 1000 ft of elevation gain.
Again, very few switchbacks. When it gets steep, they put stairs in instead.
After killing our leg muscles on that outing, we had to give ourselves a little break, so we spent the rest of the day driving around looking at the scenery and the little towns.
The Western Brook Pond boat tour is unique to this area. To get to the boat, you have to walk about 2 miles. The trail has interpretive signs along the way, making it more interesting.
Once we arrived at the boat, the tour took us into Western Brook Pond, which used to be a fjord. So why isn’t it a fjord anymore? Technically, a fjord is an inlet of a sea, which was glacially created, therefore it contains salt water.
Western Brook Pond is no longer connected to the sea, and fresh water has long since taken over the salt water, so it is now considered to be a pond. As we drove deep into the pond, we could really visualize a glacier cutting this gouge into the rock. 
Along the way, we passed by what’s known as a hanging valley. A smaller glacier cut this valley about half the depth of the pond.
To give you an idea of the height of the surrounding rock walls, there is a tour boat in this picture, but it’s barely visible.
Here’s a closer look:
There are three tour boats, small, medium, and large, holding anywhere from 30-80 or so people. Since we had to hike there, clearly there is no road, so the boats had to be brought there in a different way. One was brought in by helicopter in 5 pieces and then assembled on site. The smallest was dragged over the bog on a sled, during the winter. The third one was dragged over the bog in multiple pieces, then assembled. Hope these boats last a long time!!
The morning tours are less expensive (no one wants to be on a trail hiking by 8:30 am??) so that’s the one we took. We were extremely glad we were one of the first ones on the boat, so we could sit up on deck, where we would have a clear view of our surroundings. I’m not sure I would have been happy down in the cabin.
Anyway, we had the afternoon free so we went for a geology lesson at Green Point. Describing it here won’t do it justice, I think, but it was, to me, absolutely spooky and fascinating to see. We timed our visit to coincide with the arrival of the resident geologist which was critical for figuring out what we were looking at!
When I looked down, I saw thousands of thin layers of something, but it was perpendicular to the ground, and so didn’t make much sense. It almost looked man made.
The layers of shale (the mud on the ocean bottom) are interrupted by layers of limestone. Although each layer of shale took hundreds of years to be created, the layers of limestone were created almost instantly, by sediment from earthquakes. Scientists can determine how many earthquakes took place in any given era by “reading” the layers.Seeing the ocean floor tipped on its side, spanning hundreds of feet was cool- I wish I could have backed up to get a better shot, but unfortunately, the ocean is still there, and I didn’t have a boat!
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| Green Point, Gros Morne NP |
We had planned to hike up to the top of Gros Morne Mountain, but its a 10 mile, very strenuous hike that should only be done in good weather, and the weather forecast is calling for rain. Too dangerous to head up there, so we’ll try to get back this way after visiting St. Johns. We have booked campgrounds for the next 8 nights, and for the first 5, we won’t have any Wi-Fi, so I’ll hurry up and post this while I can!
