The Bigs!

Dayhiked to my favorite mountain on the whole AT on Saturday: Bigelow. I spent the weekend in the small town of Stratton doing my field editing/updating for the ATC Companion. I really love the town of Stratton, compact, friendly and just plain small town Maine at its best. I feel totally comfortable there. Daly and I hung out at my friend Phil's apartment in town, I had breakfast at the diner, sitting at the counter by myself, which finally I'm feeling ok about. Chatted with the guy that sat down next to me, which was interesting and yet not invasive. I left trail magic at the Rte 27 trailhead which was fun: cokes and ice tea, oranges and blueberry muffins.

Saturday Daly and I went up the Horns Pond Trail, which I have never done before! Met the caretakers @ Horns Pond who were getting ready to have a mixing party, as in mixing poo in the composting privy! He and I had a hazy summit on West Peak, but that's ok, it's such an awesome spot. I hadn't been on the Firewarden's Trail since 2000, so it was good to check in with MATC's recent rock work. Very nice! It's no longer a total slip and slide to make it up or down that steep rocky eroded trail.

Though Daly wasn't quite aware, this was a peak bagging mission for him as well, he now only needs 2 more New England 4K footers to get his patch - Old Speck in Maine and Killington in VT. His aforementioned patch is for the NH 48 peaks. I know, very silly to keep track of a dog's hiking, but I'm not the only one!

I was also able to identify and swear at one more time the offending ledge that I fell on in 02 scraping and bloodying my elbow that anxious afternoon, as I hurried along trying to make miles that just weren't happening. The silver lining to that day is that I discovered Safford Notch campsite, which I now maintain. It's a sweet spot.

Summer !

Spent the weekend up on the AT, hiking from Moxie Bald to Monson with my friend Jim and his eager OFD (obsessive fetching disorder) dog Emily and of course Dalydog! I hadn't rehiked this section since my 02 hike so it was great to see the shelters and rivers again. As per norm, I had almost no recollection of most of this section as I did it quickly in one day, versus the 2 we took this time. Met some nobos (northbound thru-hikers), the new owners of Shaw's - same name, but the carved hiker out front is gone :( , and had beautiful weather to boot!

Oh, and got some got some good thinking done too! There's just something about backpacking that puts my head right back there again. It's so different from even a day hike. It comes immediately and easily.

Daly had a surprise too, the man who he sent an email to last year on the AMC Four Thousand Footer committee was out going southbound with his wife - what a funny coincidence when we figured that out!