The Blog

On August 17 after an unusually long dry spell in Western Newfoundland, IATNL/CABOX Director Paul Wylezol set off from the Lewis Hills Trail’s northern trailhead in search of a hiking route to the east rim of Wheelers Gulch on the northeast corner of the Lewis Hills, then returned via the relatively dry Blue Hill Brook that flows north along the base of the mountains into the western end of Serpentine Lake near its outflow into Serpentine River.

Though it was a little warm for hiking, the occasional cloud and ocean breeze made for a pleasant 12-hour 23km trek into the remote western Blow Me Down Mountains on August 11. The goal was to find an access to/from the mountains below Round Hill and The Haystacks (the highest peaks on the Blow Me Downs) that would provide a 2-day east-west traverse of the hills from Benoit’s Cove via the back end of Simms Gulch. The route as is requires a small amount of to-the-knee bushwhacking and a little scree hopping, but with a few improvements will provide an intermediate level trek with great new views and more stunning geology, including another example of the Moho (Mohorovičić Discontinuity) from the Bay of Islands Ophiolite Massifs.

On the morning of July 23, IATNL directors Paul Wylezol and Delano Pittman set off in pickup truck down a gravel road just south of Trout River, heading to the remote resettled community of Chimney Cove on the gulf coast about midway between Trout River and the Bay of Islands. They were on a mission to find a hikeable route to the top of Mount St Gregory from Chimney Cove that would serve as the northern leg of a planned ST GREGORY’S CROSS one-day trek from Lower Crabb’s Brook on the north shore of the Bay of Islands to Chimney Cove, then on to Trout River at the edge of Gros Morne National Park.

On May 21, IATNL Directors Paul Wylezol and Delano Pittman took advantage of a beautiful day during an ideal time of year to make an exploratory bushwhacking trek up a prominent ridge in the lower Humber Valley to find a new scenic route to Arne’s Lookout, 1.6 kms (1 mile) west of Man In The Mountain above Humber River. The new 1.5 km route would begin 130ft above sea level near the current western trailhead and rise to 1110 ft, and provide spectacular new views of the Humber Valley, Humber Arm and Blow Me Down Mountains.

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On May 10, Cabox Aspiring Geopark commemorated the 250th Anniversary of the publication of Cook’s General Chart of the Island of Newfoundland by posting a 3-minute video which summarizes Cook’s life and ends with a spotlight on the technically innovative map of Britain’s first overseas colony, an important fishing ground and nursery for sailors. The chart was published in London in 1770 under the authority of the British Admiralty by Thomas Jefferys, Geographer of the King, while Cook was off the east coast of Australia during his first voyage to the Pacific Ocean. It was published as part of his ‘Collection of Charts of the Coasts of Newfoundland and Labradore, &c’,

During summer 2019, Cabox Aspiring Geopark ramped up its Virtual Reality (VR) program started in 2017 under the EU-funded Drifting Apart project. After acquiring its own 360° VR camera (with 6 lenses) in 2018, Cabox filmed 8 additional sets of hotspot scenes to compliment the 9 hotspots it filmed in 2017 for the GeoVR program, which in 2019 was stationed at Saltbox Restaurant and Geopark Information Center in Benoit’s Cove. The GeoVR program requires the use of a VR headset such as Oculus Rift to view hotspots in 3D virtual reality, creating a realistic effect similar to viewing the sights in person.

On April 15, IATNL/Cabox Geopark Director Paul Wylezol and friends Delano Pittman, Katie Broadhurst, Caroline Swan and Jamie Harnum took advantage of a beautiful late winter/early spring day to take a snowmobile ride on Cabox Geopark’s Blow Me Down Mountains, following the route of the IATNL Blow Me Down Mountain Trail. In the north, the trail starts near Frenchman’s Cove on Route 450 (Captain Cook’s Trail) on the south side of the Bay of Islands. From there the trail passes the Hummock foothills before entering Blow Me Down Brook Gulch (ie., Valley) at the “Sands”, the long sandy slope were the brook makes a right angle turn west and bisects the Blow Me Down Ophiolite Massif.

On March 15, Cabox Representatives and IATNL Directors Paul Wylezol and Arne Helgeland visited the Appalachian Trail Basecamp in Amicalola Falls State Park near the southern terminus of the AT at Springer Mountain, Georgia.  The basecamp is also located near the southern end of the Appalachian Mountains and is the starting point for south to northbound treks of the Appalachian Trail from nearby Springer Mountain to Mount Katahdin in Maine, then onward along IAT North America through northern Maine, New Brunswick, Gaspe Peninsula of Quebec, PEI and Nova Scotia to Cabox Geopark, then on to Crow Head on the tip of Newfoundland’s Great Northern Peninsula.

There was a good turnout Thursday, February 27, for Cabox Aspiring Geopark’s presentation at the ACAP Humber Arm lunchtime meeting at the Forestry Centre on MUN’s Grenfell Campus in Corner Brook.  Cabox Chairperson Paul Wylezol presented on the UNESCO Global Geopark program and Western Newfoundland’s Cabox project, from its history and development to the application process.