p2piper
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Oh, Brother! What a Hike! - Mt. Coe, South and North Brother-9/26/07
Stats
Mountain(s): Mt. Coe (3,795), South Brother (3,970), and North Brother (4,151)
Date: Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Time: 7 am - 6:15 pm, 11 hours and 15 minutes
Weather: Mostly cloudy, some sun, occasional sprinkles, windy - 60's
Miles: 11
Elevation Gain: 4,087
Steps: 39,071
Trails: Marston Trail - Coe Slide Trail - Marston Trail
Website with Pictures
We rolled out of bed - well, I jumped out and Nancy rolled out - at 5 am. I hate alarms and when I know I have to get up, I just get up. I hate the feeing of staying in bed for a snooze and feeling myself falling asleep and having the alarm ring again. It's worse than just getting up. We arrived at the Baxter State Park South Gatehouse a little after 6 am. The sky held a mixture of clouds and sun. The air was breezy and warm, temperatures in the mid-60's. This was the first time we had hiked two days in a row - well, two hard days in a row - and I'm one of those special, lucky people who suffers from delayed onset muscle soreness. Even when I'm fit. After a hard hike, I usually feel ok the next morning but by the afternoon, I am sore enough to limp. So slinging on my pack in the Marston trailhead parking lot on legs that were fatigued and after a poor night's sleep felt like a challenge.
I had expected today to be a challenge since we had Mt. Coe, South Brother, North Brother, and Mt. Fort on our docket for the day. While tagging those mountains were goals, they weren't set in stone - all depended on weather and how hard we wanted to push. I wasn't sure how we were going to feel after one mountain, let alone after two or three. One thing we were sure about was that Thursday was going to be a rest day. No matter what. We were on vacation, after all.
We started out at 7 am - the trail was level and ran through a forest ripe with fall foliage. I found myself loving the texture and smell and look of the trail. The ground was often a mixture of broken pink and grey granite - small pieces packed together to make for firm footing. I was enthralled by the colors of the moss that bordered the trail, a mix of green and red that was so beautiful in the morning light. 1.3 miles later we turned right onto the Coe Slide Trail. This trail meandered up a ravine and we walked on the downward side of one side of the ravine looking up toward Mt O-J-I. As we came around a bend in the trail we were confronted by the Coe Slide on our left - large, smooth rock ledges that would be very hazardous in wet conditions. Luckily, it was only threatening rain and the cloud deck was high.
It was dark, cooler and windy as we looked up the Coe Slide - it had a foreboding feel to it and I shivered in my shorts and shirt sleeves. As we started up, though, my muscles warmed to the task. This slide was reminiscent of the Baldface slide, and the trail was blazed close to the left edge where we could find the occasional hand and foothold. At one point I was ahead of Nancy and offered her a hand up on a particularly high ledge. One, two, three and up she went… right onto the scrape she had gotten when she had fallen while rollerblading last Saturday. Immediately bright beads of blood welled and started to drip down her leg. That incident, coupled with fatigue, the steepness of the slide and Nancy hating to walk laterally on steep rock with no handholds made the slide a difficult challenge. Not one to be defeated, Nancy dried the blood and started up the slide, one trail marker at a time. No looking back down. Just moving upward, one step at a time.
Finally we came to the top of the slide and re-entered the scrub before coming out to the Mt Coe summit at 10 am. We took some pictures, sat down to rest and ate some peanuts. The sun came out and we could almost see the Katahdin range to the southeast. After resting for a bit we started down the narrow ridge toward South Brother. A misstep would have been a very bad idea - maybe even fatal - as the ridge face dropped off sharply to our right. Ten minutes later found us back in the forest and on our way to South Brother. We arrived at the intersection of the Coe Slide Trail and the spur to the summit of South Brother and I put on fresh socks. Much better. My feet had been swimming in boots I hadn't worn for a while. We decided to take our cameras and leave our packs behind for the .3 mile trek to the summit. Wise decision as there was plenty of scrambling over boulders to reach the top at 11:45 am. We didn't linger since we were hungry and the sky had clouded over again.
We ate lunch at the trail intersection and decided to make a decision about North Brother when we reached the Marston Trail intersection. Upon reaching the intersection, we decided to go for North Brother. I still felt pretty good, although I wasn't sure we had enough time to tack on Fort as well. We met a couple of hikers who had separated and were descending North Brother. The male hiker said it was raining and windy at the summit of North Bro. We had already put on pack covers and rain gear several times during the day when it started to sprinkle, but the rain never materialized and we soon took everything back off again. As we trudged up to the summit I could feel myself running out of gas. It was windy on the top when we arrived at 1:50 pm. I figured Fort was a mile away and would add an hour and a half to our return time. We had at least 4.5 miles back to the parking lot. We stood and looked at Fort and the Katahdin massif for fifteen minutes thinking about our decision. Nancy said she would give it a go if I really wanted to do it. That felt wrong - pushing felt wrong - Nancy is my hiking partner and we have never pushed ourselves just because the other one wanted to. We have always pushed because we both wanted to, equally and together. I don't care about reaching the summit of any mountain compared to how much I care about my hiking partner and our safety. So I said no - we should head back. It will give us a reason to return to Baxter one more time...
There is such a strong psychological difference between the way I feel when I am climbing up a mountain, when I am moving forward down a trail, pushing toward a summit, going somewhere, than when I am climbing down a mountain, retracing my steps or walking back to the trailhead. There is a sense of ending as soon as we step off the last summit and start down, even when the hike lasts another three hours. That psychological sense of going down, going back, retracing our steps, sometimes acts like a weight on my back and legs and feet. My feet start to feel sore, my back aches, and my legs lose their spring. That is what happened on this hike. We returned to the intersection of the Marston and Coe Slide Trails and headed down Marston. The trail was beautiful. I was tired and felt comfortable with the decision not to push on toward Fort. Nancy's feet were really hurting - she couldn't seem to tie her boots in such a way as to prevent her toes from slamming into the toe box. Her dogs were not only barking, they were howling.
Seeing the car was a welcome sight - the sun reflecting off the clouds was beautiful, a warm amber glow. It felt so good to take off our boots and just sit in the car, sipping cold drinks and relishing the last two days of hiking. What a great couple of days. We experienced new physical challenges and made the right decision not to push ourselves to tag Fort. How lucky we are to have the time, the will and this incredible friendship to spur us on. Still thinking about Kilimanjaro in 2009.
57 out of 67 NE 4,000-Footers
64 out of 100 Highest
Stats
Mountain(s): Mt. Coe (3,795), South Brother (3,970), and North Brother (4,151)
Date: Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Time: 7 am - 6:15 pm, 11 hours and 15 minutes
Weather: Mostly cloudy, some sun, occasional sprinkles, windy - 60's
Miles: 11
Elevation Gain: 4,087
Steps: 39,071
Trails: Marston Trail - Coe Slide Trail - Marston Trail
Website with Pictures
We rolled out of bed - well, I jumped out and Nancy rolled out - at 5 am. I hate alarms and when I know I have to get up, I just get up. I hate the feeing of staying in bed for a snooze and feeling myself falling asleep and having the alarm ring again. It's worse than just getting up. We arrived at the Baxter State Park South Gatehouse a little after 6 am. The sky held a mixture of clouds and sun. The air was breezy and warm, temperatures in the mid-60's. This was the first time we had hiked two days in a row - well, two hard days in a row - and I'm one of those special, lucky people who suffers from delayed onset muscle soreness. Even when I'm fit. After a hard hike, I usually feel ok the next morning but by the afternoon, I am sore enough to limp. So slinging on my pack in the Marston trailhead parking lot on legs that were fatigued and after a poor night's sleep felt like a challenge.
I had expected today to be a challenge since we had Mt. Coe, South Brother, North Brother, and Mt. Fort on our docket for the day. While tagging those mountains were goals, they weren't set in stone - all depended on weather and how hard we wanted to push. I wasn't sure how we were going to feel after one mountain, let alone after two or three. One thing we were sure about was that Thursday was going to be a rest day. No matter what. We were on vacation, after all.
We started out at 7 am - the trail was level and ran through a forest ripe with fall foliage. I found myself loving the texture and smell and look of the trail. The ground was often a mixture of broken pink and grey granite - small pieces packed together to make for firm footing. I was enthralled by the colors of the moss that bordered the trail, a mix of green and red that was so beautiful in the morning light. 1.3 miles later we turned right onto the Coe Slide Trail. This trail meandered up a ravine and we walked on the downward side of one side of the ravine looking up toward Mt O-J-I. As we came around a bend in the trail we were confronted by the Coe Slide on our left - large, smooth rock ledges that would be very hazardous in wet conditions. Luckily, it was only threatening rain and the cloud deck was high.
It was dark, cooler and windy as we looked up the Coe Slide - it had a foreboding feel to it and I shivered in my shorts and shirt sleeves. As we started up, though, my muscles warmed to the task. This slide was reminiscent of the Baldface slide, and the trail was blazed close to the left edge where we could find the occasional hand and foothold. At one point I was ahead of Nancy and offered her a hand up on a particularly high ledge. One, two, three and up she went… right onto the scrape she had gotten when she had fallen while rollerblading last Saturday. Immediately bright beads of blood welled and started to drip down her leg. That incident, coupled with fatigue, the steepness of the slide and Nancy hating to walk laterally on steep rock with no handholds made the slide a difficult challenge. Not one to be defeated, Nancy dried the blood and started up the slide, one trail marker at a time. No looking back down. Just moving upward, one step at a time.
Finally we came to the top of the slide and re-entered the scrub before coming out to the Mt Coe summit at 10 am. We took some pictures, sat down to rest and ate some peanuts. The sun came out and we could almost see the Katahdin range to the southeast. After resting for a bit we started down the narrow ridge toward South Brother. A misstep would have been a very bad idea - maybe even fatal - as the ridge face dropped off sharply to our right. Ten minutes later found us back in the forest and on our way to South Brother. We arrived at the intersection of the Coe Slide Trail and the spur to the summit of South Brother and I put on fresh socks. Much better. My feet had been swimming in boots I hadn't worn for a while. We decided to take our cameras and leave our packs behind for the .3 mile trek to the summit. Wise decision as there was plenty of scrambling over boulders to reach the top at 11:45 am. We didn't linger since we were hungry and the sky had clouded over again.
We ate lunch at the trail intersection and decided to make a decision about North Brother when we reached the Marston Trail intersection. Upon reaching the intersection, we decided to go for North Brother. I still felt pretty good, although I wasn't sure we had enough time to tack on Fort as well. We met a couple of hikers who had separated and were descending North Brother. The male hiker said it was raining and windy at the summit of North Bro. We had already put on pack covers and rain gear several times during the day when it started to sprinkle, but the rain never materialized and we soon took everything back off again. As we trudged up to the summit I could feel myself running out of gas. It was windy on the top when we arrived at 1:50 pm. I figured Fort was a mile away and would add an hour and a half to our return time. We had at least 4.5 miles back to the parking lot. We stood and looked at Fort and the Katahdin massif for fifteen minutes thinking about our decision. Nancy said she would give it a go if I really wanted to do it. That felt wrong - pushing felt wrong - Nancy is my hiking partner and we have never pushed ourselves just because the other one wanted to. We have always pushed because we both wanted to, equally and together. I don't care about reaching the summit of any mountain compared to how much I care about my hiking partner and our safety. So I said no - we should head back. It will give us a reason to return to Baxter one more time...
There is such a strong psychological difference between the way I feel when I am climbing up a mountain, when I am moving forward down a trail, pushing toward a summit, going somewhere, than when I am climbing down a mountain, retracing my steps or walking back to the trailhead. There is a sense of ending as soon as we step off the last summit and start down, even when the hike lasts another three hours. That psychological sense of going down, going back, retracing our steps, sometimes acts like a weight on my back and legs and feet. My feet start to feel sore, my back aches, and my legs lose their spring. That is what happened on this hike. We returned to the intersection of the Marston and Coe Slide Trails and headed down Marston. The trail was beautiful. I was tired and felt comfortable with the decision not to push on toward Fort. Nancy's feet were really hurting - she couldn't seem to tie her boots in such a way as to prevent her toes from slamming into the toe box. Her dogs were not only barking, they were howling.
Seeing the car was a welcome sight - the sun reflecting off the clouds was beautiful, a warm amber glow. It felt so good to take off our boots and just sit in the car, sipping cold drinks and relishing the last two days of hiking. What a great couple of days. We experienced new physical challenges and made the right decision not to push ourselves to tag Fort. How lucky we are to have the time, the will and this incredible friendship to spur us on. Still thinking about Kilimanjaro in 2009.
57 out of 67 NE 4,000-Footers
64 out of 100 Highest
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