198 views, but after 36 hours, only one reply. And, that reply from John (of J&J fame) is completely correct for his third win in a row. Three Pemi Pale Ale's is not exactly at the level of Ken Jennings' winnings, but John is definitely on a roll with my red-lining contests.
My trip report for Sunday's hike is fairly mundane, as the "unstable" snow rails were gone, although the trails were wet with fog, which hung around until late afternoon when the mosquitoes came out of hiding near the bottom of the Kelley Trail. There were a few blow downs on the Walden Trail, but nothing too onerous for navigation. The Kelley Trail follows "underfit" (geomorphology term) Kelley Brook, which was much larger when glacial Lake Albany to the north drained through a spillway at Paugus Pass around 12-14,000 years ago. The upper part of the Kelley Brook valley was scoured to bedrock by these larger discharges; about half way down, a steep section bottoms out in a plunge pool. Doing this loop CW was the way to go, as the Tom Wiggin Trail is steep so better for me going up. Ditto for me going up rather than down the Blueberry Ledge Trail, although I met someone coming down who said that she perfers that over going up so that she can slide down the steep ledges, especially when they are wet.
At about 12.5 miles, this loop was my longest hike since the beginning of April after spending over six months on DL with a lower back disk rupture. But, so far, so good, as I have avoided surgery, and not even taken any cortisone shots.
