Bethel to Upton, Me.
1907
July 22
(No 2)
the passage of the river and its bordering roadway. For
the next three miles the road runs nearly straight through
unbroken and essentially primitive forest abounding in fine
old beeches, rock maples, red maples and yellow birches but long
since despoiled of its larger spruces and balsams. I can
remember when this entire stretch of road was over arched by
trees but it was widened fifteen or twenty years ago and is
now exposed in most places, to the noonday sun. If it has thus
lost some of its former attractiveness there has been an undeniable
gain in respect to the more unobstructed views which it now
affords of the browning rock-ribbed walls of this wild
and picturesque pass and of the mountain peaks and crests which
tower above and behind them. On the left Speckled Mountain
rises to a elevation above sea level of   feet, on the right
saddle-back to some   feet. Near the foot of the
former mountain is a cliff hundreds of feet in height where,
on a narrow shelf under an overhanging rock and in plain
view of the road, a pair of Golden Eagles used to breed. I
have seen them circling about their inaccessible eyre but
that was many years ago. I think they deserted the
place in the summer of 18   when one of them was
killed by a farmer living just above the notch and nailed
to the trunk of a pine growing by the roadside where I
found and examined the bird after decomposition had rendered
it unfit for preservation
On the right of the road, at no great distance from it
but completely hidden by intervening trees & underbrush,
are several curious pits and channels worn deep in the
solid rock by Bear River: Moose Cave, one of the largest
of these, owes its name - if tradition may be believed -
to the fact that a Moose was once overtaken and slain