September 29, 2007 Hike #2
After bagging Cupsuptic Snow, Peirce and I went after East Kennebago. Once again we were able to take a logging road pretty far in. Our starting elevation was about 2,450'. We felt like we were cheating a little bit by getting so close, but if a mountain doesn't have an official trailhead, where you do you start? According to the AMC we weren't cheating, you are allowed to drive as far in as you can with a non-off-road vehicle. Obviously, this excludes the roads designed to go to the top of a mountain such as the Mount Washington Auto Road. Had we parked further down the mountain, we would have just had a non-challenging roadwalk. Regardless, this is where we decided to start. Here's today's track.
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We probably could have driven a little further, but we wanted to leave some of the mountain to climb.
We began hiking up the road.
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The road turned into a path.
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We got about as close as we thought we could on the path, took a bearing, and headed into the woods.
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It wasn't hunting season yet, but Peirce and I each had a little orange on just in case.
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The woods got quite thick as we headed up.
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We made one final bush up some thick spruce where it levelled off. We walked about another minute and spotted the cannister marking the 3791' summit. This was #81 for me . . .
. . . and #99 for Peirce.
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We removed the log from the cannister and signed it.
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We searched around for a herd path to take down, but couldn't find one. With no other choice, we got a bearing, and pushed back into the thick brush. Fortunately, the bushwack down wasn't as long. We stumbled across a boundary path. Peirce commented that having already reached the summit, we were now going for style points so we followed the boundary path back to the herd path. As we followed the herd path and then the road, the clouds finally began to break up.
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Looking over towards a few of Maine's 4000 footers (Reddington, Sugarloaf, Spaulding, and Abraham).
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The foliage was beautiful, a good week or two ahead of where I live in Norway, ME.
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As we were driving our way out of the woods, I noticed Peirce wasn't behind me. I drove back a couple tenths. He had stopped to get a picture of the mountain we just climbed. Here's East Kennebago.
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We then drove up to the Stratton Motel.
We were greeted by 'The Three Bears', but no Goldilocks.
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The Stratton Motel also has a hostel which is where Peirce and I stayed. It was nothing fancy, but for $20 we got a bunk and a shower. This is a great spot for AT hikers if they want to have a bed for a night instead of the ground. There is also a kitchen and a living room which had cable TV and a laptop computer with Internet access. I was especially grateful for this. I was able to find out that the Red Sox clinched the divison. There was also a dog who's name was Knucklehead. No fooling, that was his real name.
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The town was quite friendly. I felt at home when I saw a 'Welcome Hikers' sign. Peirce really felt at home when he saw a 'Welcome Hunters' sign. (Peirce's last name is Hunter). Peirce and I ate supper at the White Wolf. No one else was staying at the hostel, so Peirce and I each had our own room. Today was a little hiking and a lot of driving. Tomorrow will be a lot of hiking and still a lot of driving.
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