Wonderland Trail

Author's Comments

The quiet side of the island is where I go when I want to remember why I came to Maine in the first place. Wonderland is barely a trail at all - flat, short, easy enough that you might dismiss it on the map - but the walk through that spruce forest is worth slowing down for. The moss is the thing. It drapes everything, and on a foggy morning the whole interior goes soft and green and almost underwater in feeling. Overcast helps. Fog helps more. The trail opens onto pink granite. Not the dramatic cliffs of the Park Loop side, but broad, low ledges that step down toward the open ocean, and at low tide the pools between them fill with small, deliberate lives - sea stars holding to the rock, urchins, anemones opening in the cold water. Time your walk to the tide rather than the hour if you can manage both. Morning light is gentle here and the crowds, if you can call them that, are almost nothing compared to the eastern side of the island. I tend to make two kinds of photographs at Wonderland and they do not fight each other. The detail work happens in the forest and in the tidal pools, close and patient. The wider frames happen on the granite, where the ledges and the horizon and the spruce edge of the shore all stack together in a way that feels distinctly Maine. Bring a macro lens if you have one. Bring rubber-soled shoes for the wet rock.

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