Spiritual Awakening

It is truly hard to describe the awesome, rugged, and sheer beauty of Maine's famed Bold Coast. Forbidding and vast, this majestic section of Down East Maine is at once accessible, but at the same time, it seems to beautiful to be real. One feels like they have reached the end of the world, and entered a whole new place. A place that will challenge, inspire and awe you at every turn. Simply put, the Bold Coast is extraordinary! Beginning at the banks of Cutler Harbor and extending up to Lubec, West Quoddy head and the Canadien Border, roughly 20 miles in length, the coastline features 200 foot cliffs, craggy shelves of weathered rocks, giant pine trees that reach high towards the heavens, and the foamy, turbulent Bay of Fundy, a rough sea that spits and surges spray as it slams into shore. I made the three hour journey to Cutler this past Monday afternoon, ready to capture the sights and sounds of the Bold Coast in early spring. What I got, far exceeded my expectations, and quietly allowed for a true awakening of my spirit, which has just now begun to creep out of the winter doldrums and into the raw and fresh offerings of spring. An 11 mile trail, part of the Cutler Public Reserved Land, loops around Western Head in Cutler, and back towards Lubec, before it turns inland, where the trail snakes and weaves through spectacular forests of spruce, birch and maples, all while crossing quiet brooks, raging streams and lovely little ponds. The smells on the hike are simply delicious! They seem to shift every few minutes from the arresting aroma of green grass, to the delicate scent of spruce, and to the powerful smell of the wild ocean that sits below me, raging and swirling at every turn. At one end of the trail, there is a man made wooden ladder that allows for the hiker to access a large rocky beach that is bordered on the left and right by two massive headlands of rock and spruce. Protected from the cool winds of April, I spent a good hour sitting on a large rock, allowing the sun to shine on my face and the sound of the incoming tides to fill my ears. I was away from the world completely at this point. My good friend Jerry, a very accomplished hiker from northern New Hampshire who had accomponied me on my foray, was the only other soul in sight. He has climbed the White Mountains his whole life, seen the views from atop the Presedentials and through the various notches and ravines of the Whites. Yet he could hardly comprehend how beautiful his present view from our beach was. "This is amazing," he said, as he ambled towards the shore line, dodging ocean spray as he went. "I think I could stay here forever." I agreed with my friend. We were locked in a magical world of blue ocean, green trees, and every colored rock you could think of. My spirit and my soul were in complete ecstasy, my body at complete ease. The temperature hovered around 55 and the wind off the Bay of Fundy swirled around us in a gentle manner that made the day all the more pleasant. I have seen so many places on this glorious coast of Maine, but none can compare with the sheer beauty of the Bold Coast. This place is another world indeed. Just stunning, from every angle!