The Damnable Trail - Coastal Ridge Trail from Salvage to The Old Cart

It was hot and steamy today on the Eastport Peninsula in Newfoundland.  We wanted to hike another section of The Damnable Trail but the only one of any length was the Coastal Ridge Trail, which runs between Salvage and Sandy Cove -- a total of 15 km each way (more on that distance later).  Because it was hot, we knew we would not be able to hike a return of more than 8 miles or so -- 13 km, so we decided to start in Salvage and set our sights on Barr Harbour, which is said to be 5 km along the trail.  This would make 10 km or 6 miles return, which we normally can do easily.

We only made it to The Old Cart, on Lind's Pond, which was about 4 km (2.5 miles), making a 5 mile return.  The hot sun was brutal -- more than the nominal 86F temperature would suggest, and the trail's ups and downs were tougher than we expected.

If you read the trail documentation, The Old Cart would be about 3 km from the Salvage trailhead, but that is dead wrong.  The trail is marked with km posts, and nominally it is 15 km total; but kilometer 1 in our direction wasn't posted until we had covered 2 km -- so the trail is, in fact, 16 km between Salvage and Sandy Cove.  We think the difference is attributable partly to sloppy trail signage and partly to the fact that sections of the trail on the Salvage end were rerouted from straight-up-and-down to switchbacks, making the trail longer in those sections than it had been originally.

In any event, The Old Cart is as far as we got.  Here we are, looking cool and perky at the Salvage trailhead:

As we started our hike, we met three hikers who were posting a car shuttle at the Salvage end to facilitate a one-way hike from Sandy Cove back to Salvage.  We thought there was a chance we would run into them on the trail; but, because we didn't make it to Barr Harbour (and perhaps because it took the other hikers longer than we expected to make the mileage), we never saw them again.

The trail travels through some spectacular scenery, including, at the beginning, granite and what appears to be tuff (rhyolite) rock face.  The trail winds over and through a number of what must be volcanic domes that resisted the erosion of ice sheets and glaciers but were rounded off during the Ice Age.

The topography made for much sharper and more frequent ups and downs than we expected.  Here we are, having bottomed out in one col, starting back up another hill:

Between the rocky domes are wetland meadows.  Some are so wet that boardwalks have been built.  We saw moose droppings along the trail and would have fully expected to see moose, but for the fact that we were hiking in the heat of the day, and no sensible moose would be out and about:

The rock domes made for some beautiful viewpoints.  Here, Kathy admires the coastal scenery from our first lookout:

This gives you a good idea what the rocky domes looked like:

About 2.5 km (1.5 miles) into the hike, we reached "The Barrens," so called because the trail crosses a barren rocky plateau with only moss and krummholz giving green relief.  The views were splendid:

We crossed perhaps 3 different wet meadows in the hike.  This one was the most dramatic:

Eventually, we reached the point in the trail known as "The Old Cart," and a sign so informed us:

Research as we might, we found nothing to explain the name.  Lind's Pond is at that location, and we decided it would make a pretty lunch spot:

A rocky drainage with a cool stream spilling down it into the lake offered us a relatively easy access to the lake, and it also offered a pretty view --

-- but the wet rocks were incredibly slippery with moss and algae, so we carefully picked our way down, found strategic spots to sit in the water, and ate our lunch:

While our lunch spot was relatively cooling from the water flow, the sun had sapped our energies, and we found the return to be a hot slog back across sun-hammered rock and through mosquito-infested woods and wetlands.  But we soldiered on, taking solace in the incredible beauty of the trail.  About half a kilometer or so from our trailhead, we returned to a wonderful, cold little spring that has been tapped to provide continual fresh water in a clean bucket.  While we had plenty of drinking water and did not need the refreshment, we eagerly drenched our hats and heads in the water to cool down for the last short bit of the hike.

This was not our longest hike by any stretch, but it turned out to be one of the hottest and, with the steep ups and downs, one of the most taxing of those we have recently done.  Still, it will be memorable for the great beauty.  We wish we had tried it in cooler weather, because we would have liked to see Barr Harbour.  Maybe another day.