Rainy White mountains
Sadly, Sunday morning dawned with rain drops on my tent… lots of them. Radio forecasts claimed showers all day and they weren’t far off the mark. I drove around to some likely hiking spots but as I arrived at each trailhead the heavens opened up in a heavy downpour. I’m not opposed to getting caught in the rain on a hike…but starting a hike and being soaked to the skin before I even get to the trail register doesn’t thrill me. Instead I would venture on in the car checking out the local scenery, such as it was beneath a heavy cloud cover. Finally around 2 pm I got to a trailhead without pelting rain and went for a lowland hike. Sure enough, a couple hours from the car, the rains started to bucket down and I turned tail and headed back. Cold and damp at camp I layered up, got a hot meal in me and got a big fire roaring as the rain continued to fall.
The clearer skies of Maine
Monday dawned with a low cloud deck – but it wasn’t raining! Packing up the tent I discovered after two days of heavy rain the underside of my tent fly had become a Hilton hotel for big, yellow slugs. Had to be careful to remove the many potential hitchhikers before packing the wet tent into the car. As I drove out of camp it was clear the high peaks were still ensconced in low clouds and, even with a promising forecast it was unclear if the peaks would clear today. I opted to head further north and east to see if I could outwit the clouds. Sure enough as I got into Maine the clouds cleared and the sun shone so all was looking up.
An ugly summit area frames the vistas off towards northern Maine
Decided to head for Old Speck – one of Maine’s high peaks. Old Speck is my first Maine mountain and if this is representative of the other peaks in Maine I am looking forward to returning to them. Much like Giant in the Adirondacks the trail up Old Speck goes steeply uphill from the carpark and seldom lets up. Unlike the Adirondacks the level of trailwork is surprisingly good with lots of nice rockwork staircases and even some small stemples and cabling to aid in steep/wet pitches. Climbing the trail offered a number of great views across the valley to the nearby peaks and once reaching the summit there were 360 views from a small observation platform. That said the summit had been clearcut at one point to offer views (perhaps prior to the tower being built) and now was an ugly open scar that was slowly eroding down to bare rock. From the tower I could see north to the other high peaks of Maine and back into New Hampshire where the Whites had now been cleared of their pesky cloud cover :( . Also on display nearby was the impressive Mahoosuc notch which sits just to the west of Old Speck. The notch is renowned to Appalachian trail hikers as the “hardest mile” on the trail. It's filled with enormous rocks and boulders that the hikers have to clamber over, under, around. Certainly looked impressive from my perch on high but I’ll have to go back one day for a closer inspection of that part of the AT. The descent was mostly painless although being so steep meant slow, careful progress had to be employed as a trip and fall would be pretty nasty. Closer to the base the trail passes many waterfalls which - after a few days of rain were flowing nicely. In spite of the rainy weather this trip worked out pretty well. Some nice quiet time by the fireside, perhaps a beverage or two consumed and I got a couple of hikes in to boot.
Rainfall from yesterday working its way downhill
2 comments:
Some great photos with rushing water :-)
The views of the whites from the Twin mountain area are really spectacular, especially in the winter.
ps That is a long way to drive to avoid a bad weather forecast!
Thanks. Indeed I probably could have stayed closer to home and burned some firewood... but the purpose was to get away so even the drive was a form of therapy ;-)
As for the views in Twin mountain... I'll have to take your word for it... maybe I'll see something next time :)
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