then shower, shave and shine, and 7 AM breakfast at the Looney Moose Cafe. Got to the end of a LOOOONG dirt road, and started the hike just after 9:
The map from The Maine Atlas and Gazetteer (DeLorme, 2007) seems pretty straight-forward (park at the green X):
and the description from the Maine Mountain Guide (Appalachian Mountain Club, 2012) also seems pretty straight-forward:
So how did I turn a 6.6 miles Round Trip hike into 11.76 miles which took me 6 hours 21 minutes!!!
Next time - in unfamiliar territory - USE THE COMPASS a lot more. As soon as I had turned southeast, then east, I should have stopped and backed up to the dotted-line which is more west (and on the north side of "the brook"). I wound up bushwacking south, then north, around Snow Mtn Pond (yes, very pretty):
and by continuing around the Pond I found the "small wooden sign on a tree with an arrow pointing to the right":
I then followed a pretty-well-defined trail up the mountain:
except for having to go around some blow-downs.
A-little-more-than halfway up I lost the trail, and went kind-of-straight when I should have taken a hard/sharp left. I kept climbing up through very crowded trees, on a thick mossy floor:
Sometimes they were so thick that I could not even squeeze between them. I went left (but not enough), I went uphill, I went right, and then finally went down and west - that was enough for one day. 1 hour and 30 minutes after I started bushwacking, I popped out onto THE TRAIL:
I wanted to go down, but I knew the summit was only 1/2 mile up the trail - so I turned up the path.
28 minutes later I was at the summit:
Thank you God for allowing me to do this!
Needless to say, put a firetower-with-a-ladder on a mountain-top, and people are going to climb it! The views are pretty terrific (starting with looking down on Snow Mtn Pond):
(See my boot at the bottom of the photo?)
I headed back down, and less than an hour later was saying goodbye to Snow Mtn Pond:
The logging road was pretty wet:
but even with my (wrong) twists and turns, I made it back to the car at 3:20 PM.
I wound up drinking a couple of cans of iced tea/lemonade from a couple of gas stations. I wanted to take "the scenic route" home, so I headed west on ME-16:
which turns into NH-16 South when it crosses over into New Hampshire. (yes, "that 16 South", which goes all the way down to I-95) IT IS BEAUTIFUL!! The road is NEW BLACKTOP, and runs right alongside the Androscoggin River:
Burger King dinner in North Conway (kind of hobbling because I think I pulled a muscle in the back of my right thigh). Home at 11. WOW - THANK YOU GOD again for this great MAINE adventure!
Today's driving music was the 8th group of the "G" songs from my big iPod (finished the G's, and started the H's). I made it through 96 songs (click here for the list of songs), beginning with:
Dave Matthews Band - "Grey Street" from the album Busted Stuff, 2002
and ending with:
Patty Larkin - "Hallelujah" from the album Watch The Sky, 2008
highlights include:
The Rascals - "Groovin'" from the album Time Peace, 4 weeks #1 in 1967
Bruce Springsteen - "Growin' Up" from the album Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J., 1972
The flag of piracy flew from my mast,
my sails were set wing to wing
Miranda Lambert - both "Guilty In Here" and "Gunpowder & Lead" from the album Crazy Ex-Girlfriend 2007
Is it guilty in here
or is it just me
Crosby, Stills & Nash - "Guinnevere" from their first album Crosby, Stills & Nash, 1969
And finally in the H's:
Jeff Buckley - "Hallelujah" from the album Grace, 1994
But remember when I moved in you
And the holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah
No comments:
Post a Comment