Dennis Dixon is heading North!: NE 100 Highest

Wednesday, July 18, 2018 - Got out of the sleeping bag/out of the car at 6:00, to a BEAUTIFUL Maine Morning:

and its always nice to get in a little morning dip:

Today I am going to tackle Fort Mountain, with my firehose pants and a slicker/windbreaker. It defeated me last September with the KILLER pine needles, so I'm going prepared this time. After a wonderful 7 AM breakfast (Thank You Barbara), I hit the road north to the Slide Dam Picnic Area in Baxter State Park:

Google Maps said it would take me just over 2 hours to get there - unfortunately they forgot to mention that it was ALL ON DIRT ROADS:

Halfway to the trailhead, I was SO HAPPY to finally see a road sign that I just had to take its picture:

and the beautiful area right behind it:

At the bridge over the West Branch Penobscot River, looking northwest:

and looking northeast (toward Katadin):

So, life is a journey, but it is nice (once in a while) to actually "get to the trailhead" (at 10:25):

I had previously hiked this trail Sept. 22, 2017 (click here for blog), and the trail remains beautiful:

I made it up to Teardrop Pond in an hour, but I'm a little worried by this low cloud cover:

Yes, the trail up to North Brother is kind of vertical:

but I made that summit at 1:07

Just on the other side of the rocks/sign, I had a nice chat with a couple of guys who had just done Fort Mountain - they said it was wet. Really wet. REALLY REALLY WET!

So I put on my slicker/windbreaker and head down into the Wonderful Soft fir tree forest - WOW!!! Once I found the foot-wide path, it was actually quite painless to get down-and-over-and-up:

On Fort Mountain, looking southwest back at North Brother:

looking northwest at the true summit:

looking northeast into wilderness:

and looking southeast at the false summit:

Glad I got this one in my pocket:

(the green tint is a little strange.)

Back at North Brother looking northeast at Fort Mountain:

The sky has cleared up pretty nicely.
Looking east at Northwest Basin:

and a final look at Katadin:

Going back down - the view of Teardrop Lake:

with Doubletop Mountain in the distance:

I finished the hike about 5 PM - 11.26 miles in 6 hours 32 minutes:

I wanted to do a preview of tomorrow's Gulf Hagas (hay-gas, not the Scottish food), so I headed down through Millinocket:

Sure is pretty driving through Maine at 7:30 in the evening:

When I told the woman at the "east gatehouse" [$14 for a day pass] that I wanted to quickly see Hay Brook Falls (mentioned in the New England Waterfalls book), she gave me the Big Raised Eyebrows and said "Oh no, you have too nice a car to do that!" So I poked around on trails/logging roads for a little bit, then drove the length of "The Area" to exit out on Greenville Road. Another 9 PM dinner at Jamos Pizza

and then north to set up my tent at the campground. THANK YOU GOD again for this great adventure!

Today's driving music was the 6th group of the "G" songs from my big iPod. I made it through 80 songs (click here for the list of songs), beginning with:

Elton John - "Goodbye" from the album Madman Across The Water, 1971

and ending with:

Dave Matthews Band - "Grave Digger" from the album The Gorge (2 cds), 2004 live (2002 concert)

highlights include:

Counting Crows - "Goodnight Elisabeth" and "Goodnight L.A.", both from New Amsterdam: Live At Heineken Music Hall, 2006 live (2003 concert)