Sugarloaf & Spaulding 3/29/2015

Beautiful day in Maine! We took the black diamond trail up to the tower and the summit! We were told we could choose whatever trail we wanted as long as we stayed off to the side so we chose the most direct route. Took us an hour and 20 to get to the top. There were no footprints heading off to Spaulding so we stepped into the small scrubby spruces looking straight at the ridge that goes to Spaulding, in about 50-100 feet we saw a Boundary marker on what looked like it might be a trail and eventually we saw a blue blaze. We followed the blue blazes and a pretty clear trail down to the junction with the A.T., it came up pretty fast. There were still absolutely no prints at the junction but the path was pretty solid about a foot underneath where we were stepping. I had read a trip report from 2 weeks earlier and I was pretty amazed at how much it had snowed since then!! We tried as best we could to follow the A.T. (the markers were hard to spot and sometimes buried)and it was pretty obvious when we stepped outside the last hikers path because suddenly we sunk up to our waist in the snow. We did have to duck pretty much the entire way under heavy snow covered branches and got quite a few scratches on ours faces from barren branches sticking out.....wear a hood and put your pack cover on before you go over the top of Sugarloaf! Also bring top layers to change into! One of us had to change on the top of Spaulding prior to the trip back because of the soaking wet shivers!! Obviously, snowshoes are a must! It was a wonderfully quiet hike, the kind that makes you forget about "lists" and reminds you of the solitude of the remote Maine wilderness!!
Debbie