Reindeer Moss & Muskrat Falls

Mike and Judy left Monday on a ferry that’s making a 5-day round-trip resupply run to some of the seacoast villages farther north, villages which otherwise are unreachable.  

While they’re gone, I’ve wandered about and found a shot I liked of a small pine tree growing in a plot of reindeer moss.

A Google search reveals that reindeer moss is edible not only by reindeer and caribou, but also by humans, usually as a survival food, but it first must be leached of its acidity, which it uses to break down rock crystals.  Soaked in two changes of water for a total of about 24 hours, it may then be ingested.  Or it could be dried after leaching, ground and used as a nutritious thickener for soups and stews.  Low protein, but high in carbohydrates and vitamins.  Sorta makes your mouth water, eh?

Another day, I went to the Visitors Center, and was told of the Muskrat Falls, just a few miles back west on HW 500 and a bit south.  So I set off, traveling about 18 miles west, then looking for it just to the south, found instead a rough roadway into the wilderness - how could I resist?  

About 2 miles down this road, I came to a very large graded and graveled parking lot with four roads branching out from it.  Here I parked and chose   

• Road #1:  about 1/2 mile of very primitive, root and rock studded trail, often marshy, angling steeply downhill, which led to the river far above the falls - couldn’t even see them.  Climbing steeply back up to the parking area, I then chose

• Road #3:  about 1/2 mile of very primitive, root and rock studded trail, often marshy, angling steeply downhill, which led to the river far below the falls - couldn’t even see them.  Climbing steeply back up to the parking area, I then chose 

• Road #2:  about 1/2 mile of very primitive, root and rock studded trail. often marshy, angling steeply downhill, which led to the river right at the falls - sort of a horizontal falls.  

• (Who knows where Road #4 leads?)

And the forest was so dense, the terrain so steep, the edge at the river so sheer that I couldn’t really get a good clear shot, let alone a good look at them, but how they did roar!  You can’t see it from this picture, but the river was quite broad at this point.  And I still had to climb back up, steeply, to the parking area.

You can find a far better picture of the falls, and get a more realistic impression of their true size, at
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/3378978.