danno
New member
This past Friday was a great day for a hike in the Maine woods.
Photos of the hike here: http://sopomedia.com/trips/2007/Old-Speck_02-23-2007/
I met John and Mark at the Eyebrow trail head outside of Newry Maine. At 9am it was 8 degrees out with blue skies and it was a tad bit windy. We were in for a descent hike for the day, and lucked out with the trail being broken out the entire way to the summit.
The hike up to the top of the eyebrow trail (on old speck trail) was nice. The waterfalls had great ice on them and afforded us nice views up to the ridge above the Eyebrow.
About a mile from the summit Mark decided to bag the summit as he wasn't feeling too good. We talked about whether we would continue or not, and decided that John and I would continue and Mark would go back down to the car. Since Mark was an experienced hiker, we figured we would end up being behind him by about an hour, so with directions to stay on the trail, we let him go. Turns out we hit the parking lot about an hour behind him as planned. In some circumstances I wouldn't have made this decision, but it seemed ok today based on conditions and having hiked with Mark before.
I can’t remember if it was 4f or -4f degrees on top of the mountain. The summit felt a bit cold, but not too bad until we went up onto the tower. On the tower the wind was howling so much that I didn’t even think about pulling my camera out. We stayed on the tower for less than 2 minutes. Mount Washington and other NH mountains were in the clouds, and it was obvious the clouds were heading our way. Grafton Notch looked sweet.
A note, there was a bunch of bare-booted postholes on the trail, more so the higher we went. That was a bit of a pain, but it wasn't too bad. Glad it wasn’t me making the holes though. snowshoes were the right thing for the day.
What was sunny and blue skies on the way up turned to cloudy on the way down. Blue skies turned to grey, and by the time we hit the parking lot a very light snow was coming down. It was 11 degrees when we finished at 3:30pm (2 hours to get down).
One pain for the day was that I was feeling fine at the trail head at the end of the hike. I started taking my snow shoes off (with my pack on), I pulled on the first strap for the bindings and tweaked my back in a strange and undetermined way. Its feeling better now, but I'll be taking off my pack in the future when dealing with my snow shoes. What do they call this, old age?
Photos of the hike here: http://sopomedia.com/trips/2007/Old-Speck_02-23-2007/
I met John and Mark at the Eyebrow trail head outside of Newry Maine. At 9am it was 8 degrees out with blue skies and it was a tad bit windy. We were in for a descent hike for the day, and lucked out with the trail being broken out the entire way to the summit.
The hike up to the top of the eyebrow trail (on old speck trail) was nice. The waterfalls had great ice on them and afforded us nice views up to the ridge above the Eyebrow.
About a mile from the summit Mark decided to bag the summit as he wasn't feeling too good. We talked about whether we would continue or not, and decided that John and I would continue and Mark would go back down to the car. Since Mark was an experienced hiker, we figured we would end up being behind him by about an hour, so with directions to stay on the trail, we let him go. Turns out we hit the parking lot about an hour behind him as planned. In some circumstances I wouldn't have made this decision, but it seemed ok today based on conditions and having hiked with Mark before.
I can’t remember if it was 4f or -4f degrees on top of the mountain. The summit felt a bit cold, but not too bad until we went up onto the tower. On the tower the wind was howling so much that I didn’t even think about pulling my camera out. We stayed on the tower for less than 2 minutes. Mount Washington and other NH mountains were in the clouds, and it was obvious the clouds were heading our way. Grafton Notch looked sweet.
A note, there was a bunch of bare-booted postholes on the trail, more so the higher we went. That was a bit of a pain, but it wasn't too bad. Glad it wasn’t me making the holes though. snowshoes were the right thing for the day.
What was sunny and blue skies on the way up turned to cloudy on the way down. Blue skies turned to grey, and by the time we hit the parking lot a very light snow was coming down. It was 11 degrees when we finished at 3:30pm (2 hours to get down).
One pain for the day was that I was feeling fine at the trail head at the end of the hike. I started taking my snow shoes off (with my pack on), I pulled on the first strap for the bindings and tweaked my back in a strange and undetermined way. Its feeling better now, but I'll be taking off my pack in the future when dealing with my snow shoes. What do they call this, old age?
