Deep in the forest near my house, massive boulders lie scattered along a hill, chunks of granite so tall they dwarf surrounding trees.
Walking among them, I navigate a maze filled with dark nooks and crannies, the rough walls embedded with black and white crystals and draped with lichen and ferns.
The wilderness sparks my imagination. When I enter this area of the woods, sometimes I envision the boulders as slumbering giants. Any minute, they might stir and stretch to the sky.
Meanwhile, the part of me that knows a little bit about geology understands that a glacier transported these rocks thousands of years ago, then dropped them off as it retreated.
These types of glacial deposits can be found throughout Maine, and the stick season — the drab period between brilliant fall foliage and winter wonderland — is the perfect time for finding them.
With leaves off the trees, you can see farther into the dense forest to spot the hulking shapes of boulders and other interesting geological features that might be hidden by greenery during the summer and cloaked in snow during the winter.
But you don’t have to go bushwhacking to visit some of Maine’s most impressive boulders. Many parks and preserves feature trails that are designed to visit them.
A few days ago, for example, I passed by a group of boulders while hiking Tunk Mountain in eastern Maine. That’s on the state-owned Donnell Pond Public Land.
Earlier this summer, I hiked past a famous boulder on the edge of Kidney Pond in Baxter State Park. The name? Kidney Stone.
I also visited the Debsconeag Ice Caves, which are small caves formed in the spaces between boulders that are piled on top of each other. The 2-mile round-trip hike is located in the Debsconeag Lakes Wilderness Area, which The Nature Conservancy owns, and it features a number of beautiful, fern-covered boulders.
When the composition of the boulder is different from the bedrock underneath it, it’s called a glacial erratic.
One of the most famous glacial erratics in Maine is Bubble Rock, which is located on the small mountain called South Bubble in Acadia National Park. While not particularly big, Bubble Rock is notable because it sits at the edge of a cliff, balancing as if it could tumble down the mountain at any moment.
While the bedrock of the area is called Cadillac Mountain Granite, Bubble Rock is made up of Lucerne Granite, which formed about 30 miles northwest of where the boulder now lies. A glacier transported it from its original location to where it sits.
And that’s not at all unusual. Daggett Rock — thought to be Maine’s largest glacial erratic at 80 feet long, 30 feet wide and 25 feet high — lies at the end of a short walking path in Phillips. Yet, due to its composition, it’s believed to have originated in the Saddleback Mountain area, several miles away.
It’s estimated to weigh about 8,000 tons. That’s a large piece of glacial debris.
Bass Rock is another famous erratic. Just peeking above the surface of Webb Lake, you can spot it from Webb Beach at Mount Blue State Park. A favorite spot for paddlers to stop, Bass Rock is a metamorphic rock, while the bedrock underlying the lake is igneous rock.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly where Bass Rock came from, but since glacial ice generally flowed from northwest to southeast, it was probably carried to the lake from the nearby Tumbledown Mountain area, according to the Maine Geological Survey.
Most glacial erratics don’t get named. They’re so common throughout Maine that they blend into the landscape. If you live here, you might see them so often that you don’t think they’re anything special.
Some of my neighbors have boulders in their yards that compete with the size of their houses. And in the nearby lake, submerged erratics lurk just below the surface, threatening to sink boats.
Yet to people visiting Maine from other states or countries, these giant boulders stand out as spectacular landmarks. And if you think about it, they are pretty cool.
I count myself as fortunate to have so many interesting boulders scattered through the forest near my home. And I’m willing to bet that they’ve only been admired by me and a few hunters in the past 50 years or so.
Today, I went out to admire some of them with my dog Juno. My boots crunching in the dry leaves, I wove through bare-branched trees to find boulders larger than my tool shed, covered in rock tripe, a lichen that forms in rubbery sheets of vibrant green and black.
Many of the boulders were topped by rock ferns, which are among the few species of ferns in Maine that will remain green and lively-looking throughout the winter, even when dusted with snow.
I picked my way through the maze of boulders until I found it: the rock I’d been searching for — or two rocks, to be precise. Years ago, I stumbled across a boulder sitting on top of a larger boulder. And there it was, just as I remembered it.
My best guess is that a glacier dropped the boulders off like that, but maybe there’s another explanation. Whatever the case, I think it’s quite special. It reminds me of a cherry on top of an ice cream cone, or a pom-pom on top of a hat.
Perhaps I should name it. Any suggestions?
