A couple good days in Maine, Part 1: Whitecap, Boundary & N. Kennebago Divide 9/5/09
Clearly I’m not much of a regular trip report writer, but I wanted to jot my rambling thoughts and memories down while they are still fresh from a Labor Day weekend of great hiking and finally reaching a personal milestone. Thanks for indulging me.
Completing the 115: Prologue and Plot
Ain’t it funny how time slips away. - Willy Nelson
In 1991, as a much younger and lazier man, I stood atop South Crocker gazing over to the North peak of Redington on a hot and sweaty August afternoon with a heavy multi-day pack and waning resolve to bag a somewhat obscure NEHH peak with a forested summit and no views. I caved. “Think I’ll be skippin’ that one today. ‘Whack looks ugly with a big pack on. Snot even a four thousand footer. ‘Sides, I’ll be back soon” went the internal dialogue. I’m confident that there are timeless cultures somewhere on the planet that consider an eighteen year hiatus as “being back soon”; clearly I have significant traces of such a heritage of lazy procrastination and self rationalization hardwired in my genetic code.
Fast forward eighteen years, and, through the miracle of plate tectonics – what with the Atlantic oceanic plate plowing into North America and all - Redington has thrust rapidly skyward, rising above the chorus line of 3,800 and 3,900-footers to the lofty stardom of an official 4K peak. Redington gets an additional “helping hand” from an unsavory cabal of elevation-hungry peakbaggers who opt to "split the difference" by arbitrarily adding half a contour interval in elevation above the highest contour shown on the map - that's an automatic additional 10 feet gimme based on the 20 foot contour interval maps as a reward for remaining unsurveyed! From 3984 feet to 4010 feet in just a couple decades, over a foot per year of orogenic upheaval!!! Redington is now a legit 4,000 footer with peaklist cred and easy access and egress via a well-marked logging road network and well-trod herd path over to South Crocker. It’s bona fide. In-print guidebook bona fide. No excuses; I had to go back and do battle with my lazy DNA.
Scene One: The NEHH Warm up Drill, including Boring Bits from the Directors Cut
On Saturday, as a warm up to Redington, I headed north to tag three additional sub-4K wannabees on the New England Hundred Highest list - White Cap, Boundary Peak, North Kennebago Divide. I checked my NEHH “to do” list penciled in the back of a 1979 AMC White Mountain guidebook, and noted the completion date for my last peak completed – Middle Abraham – was twelve or so years ago. Yo! Rip van Bagger! That peak was scratched from the NEHH peaklist last millenium! Must be that pesky plate tectonics at work again. It’s not just about rapid mountain building; there’s rapid peak list subsidence too! Note to self: It’s a brand new millennium Dude - time to buy current guidebooks, update a few lists.
Based on recent trip reports I opted for the Bear Brook access to the NEHH trio, which made for a very reasonable nine-hour circuit at a modest pace over the three peaks. I drove in via Wiggle Brook Road, but used the Canada Road/Kennebago River Road to make my escape at the end of the day once I realized that the bridge over the Kennebago River had been rebuilt. With the dry conditions that have characterized our recent weather the dirt road was readily driveable to the end in a fairly low-slung car. I drove past lots of recent logging activity in the Bear Brook drainage, with skidders and logging trucks and giant portable circular saws on steel frames parked beside the road. Big piles of cut logs were stacked neatly at the roadside waiting to be trucked away, however, it appeared that all the loggers had the long weekend off for no one was working in the woods that day.
Hiking conditions were perfect, as they were throughout the northeast over the long holiday weekend. Bluebird cloudless skies, cool temps and no bugs, as the mosquitoes and their brethren and sistren had been decimated apparently by the frost that hit the region the night before. The hike to Whitecap from the end of Bear Brook Road was perhaps the easiest of any of the 115 peaks that I can recall – less than an hour from car to summit. A short and steady climb along an old logging road leads directly to the col between Whitecap and N. Kennebago Divide, and from there a narrower trail trends west before curving and eventually trending eastward. Right about where one might suspects that they might be heading in a distinctly wrong direction, one heads north to the peak along an easy to find herd path. After making my mark in the summit register, and basking in the self indulgent glow of having joined the all star cast of hiking luminaries who had signed in previously, I made the modest bushwhack over to the international boundary, first following a westerly compass bearing aiming for the col between Whitecap and Monument Peak and then heading up the short eastern flank of Monument above the col. Soon I stood astride the border beside Monument 450, happy and foolish, with one foot planted in Canada and the other in the U.S. just because I could.
The Imaginary Action Sequence
From Monument Peak its a simple hike of a few miles along the international boundary to Boundary Peak and back, running the well known gauntlet past numerous moose hunting blinds that line the Canadian side of the border cut. One that I really liked had stylish trees painted on its plywood sides and camo-cloth curtains covering some of the sniper cut-outs. One is nearly always in sight of one or more of the blinds. The solo hiker’s mind wanders. Phrases such as” triangulation of crossfire” from the movie ‘JFK’ crept uncomfortably into my border psyche. Woe be it to any peakbaggers that errantly stray over the line into Canada during moose season! I kept my head low and mentally ran a clever zigzag combat pattern past the blinds, heroically dodging imaginary stray bullets to avoid an ugly end to my peak-bagging career. I had yet to do Redington, and didn't want my epitaph to read “R.I.P. Seve. 114/115. – He was always a peak shy of a full list”. But truth be told the border was quiet and the hunting blinds empty that day. I had an unexpected pleasant conversation atop Boundary Peak with a friendly Quebecois couple that happened by on an ATV outing along the border, perhaps on their way to spruce up their moose shack. They were the only people I saw all day. Just nice folks, out enjoying a beautiful Sunday morning drive. Irrational thoughts of crazed border snipers slipped quietly away, until the return trip back past the hunting blinds to Monument Peak – Back and to the Left. Back and to the Left. Back and to the Left.
From Monument 450 I worked my way through the woods across the southwestern flank of Whitecap, trying not to lose too much elevation while crossing the fingers of numerous old logging cuts that fan upward into the headwaters of the Porter Brook drainage west of Kennebago Divide. Eventually I hit the col and the trail back to the car, and shortly thereafter, headed south through the woods towards the peak of North Kennebago Divide. It took a tad longer from the col than the leisurely stroll to Whitecap, but it was relatively simple once I connected with an obvious beaten path that led directly to the summit. An hour or so down to the car, and it's a wrap. NEHH #93, #94, and #95.
Clearly I’m not much of a regular trip report writer, but I wanted to jot my rambling thoughts and memories down while they are still fresh from a Labor Day weekend of great hiking and finally reaching a personal milestone. Thanks for indulging me.
Completing the 115: Prologue and Plot
Ain’t it funny how time slips away. - Willy Nelson
In 1991, as a much younger and lazier man, I stood atop South Crocker gazing over to the North peak of Redington on a hot and sweaty August afternoon with a heavy multi-day pack and waning resolve to bag a somewhat obscure NEHH peak with a forested summit and no views. I caved. “Think I’ll be skippin’ that one today. ‘Whack looks ugly with a big pack on. Snot even a four thousand footer. ‘Sides, I’ll be back soon” went the internal dialogue. I’m confident that there are timeless cultures somewhere on the planet that consider an eighteen year hiatus as “being back soon”; clearly I have significant traces of such a heritage of lazy procrastination and self rationalization hardwired in my genetic code.
Fast forward eighteen years, and, through the miracle of plate tectonics – what with the Atlantic oceanic plate plowing into North America and all - Redington has thrust rapidly skyward, rising above the chorus line of 3,800 and 3,900-footers to the lofty stardom of an official 4K peak. Redington gets an additional “helping hand” from an unsavory cabal of elevation-hungry peakbaggers who opt to "split the difference" by arbitrarily adding half a contour interval in elevation above the highest contour shown on the map - that's an automatic additional 10 feet gimme based on the 20 foot contour interval maps as a reward for remaining unsurveyed! From 3984 feet to 4010 feet in just a couple decades, over a foot per year of orogenic upheaval!!! Redington is now a legit 4,000 footer with peaklist cred and easy access and egress via a well-marked logging road network and well-trod herd path over to South Crocker. It’s bona fide. In-print guidebook bona fide. No excuses; I had to go back and do battle with my lazy DNA.
Scene One: The NEHH Warm up Drill, including Boring Bits from the Directors Cut
On Saturday, as a warm up to Redington, I headed north to tag three additional sub-4K wannabees on the New England Hundred Highest list - White Cap, Boundary Peak, North Kennebago Divide. I checked my NEHH “to do” list penciled in the back of a 1979 AMC White Mountain guidebook, and noted the completion date for my last peak completed – Middle Abraham – was twelve or so years ago. Yo! Rip van Bagger! That peak was scratched from the NEHH peaklist last millenium! Must be that pesky plate tectonics at work again. It’s not just about rapid mountain building; there’s rapid peak list subsidence too! Note to self: It’s a brand new millennium Dude - time to buy current guidebooks, update a few lists.
Based on recent trip reports I opted for the Bear Brook access to the NEHH trio, which made for a very reasonable nine-hour circuit at a modest pace over the three peaks. I drove in via Wiggle Brook Road, but used the Canada Road/Kennebago River Road to make my escape at the end of the day once I realized that the bridge over the Kennebago River had been rebuilt. With the dry conditions that have characterized our recent weather the dirt road was readily driveable to the end in a fairly low-slung car. I drove past lots of recent logging activity in the Bear Brook drainage, with skidders and logging trucks and giant portable circular saws on steel frames parked beside the road. Big piles of cut logs were stacked neatly at the roadside waiting to be trucked away, however, it appeared that all the loggers had the long weekend off for no one was working in the woods that day.
Hiking conditions were perfect, as they were throughout the northeast over the long holiday weekend. Bluebird cloudless skies, cool temps and no bugs, as the mosquitoes and their brethren and sistren had been decimated apparently by the frost that hit the region the night before. The hike to Whitecap from the end of Bear Brook Road was perhaps the easiest of any of the 115 peaks that I can recall – less than an hour from car to summit. A short and steady climb along an old logging road leads directly to the col between Whitecap and N. Kennebago Divide, and from there a narrower trail trends west before curving and eventually trending eastward. Right about where one might suspects that they might be heading in a distinctly wrong direction, one heads north to the peak along an easy to find herd path. After making my mark in the summit register, and basking in the self indulgent glow of having joined the all star cast of hiking luminaries who had signed in previously, I made the modest bushwhack over to the international boundary, first following a westerly compass bearing aiming for the col between Whitecap and Monument Peak and then heading up the short eastern flank of Monument above the col. Soon I stood astride the border beside Monument 450, happy and foolish, with one foot planted in Canada and the other in the U.S. just because I could.
The Imaginary Action Sequence
From Monument Peak its a simple hike of a few miles along the international boundary to Boundary Peak and back, running the well known gauntlet past numerous moose hunting blinds that line the Canadian side of the border cut. One that I really liked had stylish trees painted on its plywood sides and camo-cloth curtains covering some of the sniper cut-outs. One is nearly always in sight of one or more of the blinds. The solo hiker’s mind wanders. Phrases such as” triangulation of crossfire” from the movie ‘JFK’ crept uncomfortably into my border psyche. Woe be it to any peakbaggers that errantly stray over the line into Canada during moose season! I kept my head low and mentally ran a clever zigzag combat pattern past the blinds, heroically dodging imaginary stray bullets to avoid an ugly end to my peak-bagging career. I had yet to do Redington, and didn't want my epitaph to read “R.I.P. Seve. 114/115. – He was always a peak shy of a full list”. But truth be told the border was quiet and the hunting blinds empty that day. I had an unexpected pleasant conversation atop Boundary Peak with a friendly Quebecois couple that happened by on an ATV outing along the border, perhaps on their way to spruce up their moose shack. They were the only people I saw all day. Just nice folks, out enjoying a beautiful Sunday morning drive. Irrational thoughts of crazed border snipers slipped quietly away, until the return trip back past the hunting blinds to Monument Peak – Back and to the Left. Back and to the Left. Back and to the Left.
From Monument 450 I worked my way through the woods across the southwestern flank of Whitecap, trying not to lose too much elevation while crossing the fingers of numerous old logging cuts that fan upward into the headwaters of the Porter Brook drainage west of Kennebago Divide. Eventually I hit the col and the trail back to the car, and shortly thereafter, headed south through the woods towards the peak of North Kennebago Divide. It took a tad longer from the col than the leisurely stroll to Whitecap, but it was relatively simple once I connected with an obvious beaten path that led directly to the summit. An hour or so down to the car, and it's a wrap. NEHH #93, #94, and #95.
