Maine
August 1992
Behold, observations from the Bigelow Range, Maine’s Second Mountain.
Six peaks run 12 miles east-west in western Maine. The Bigelow Range. They’re gorgeous. I mean, they’re mountains! Of course they are gorgeous.
But they were almost not gorgeous. In the mid 1970s, a proposal was made to turn this area into a massive ski resort. This, in my opinion, would have made the mountain range not gorgeous. The Maine Appalachian Trail Club and other conservation groups came along and rallied the citizenry who decided by a very large margin to have the state purchase the land and create a 33 000-acre wilderness preserve, the Bigelow Preserve, assuring protection in perpetuity. So it will remain protected. And gorgeous. Hooray! Please ski elsewhere.
day 1
Fly Pittsburgh to Portland, Maine and pick up a rental car. Six different roads, from interstate pavement to backwoods dirt, to get to trailhead on Bog Brook Road. Park on a gravel clearing alongside the road, just yards from the Appalachian Trail at the eastern trailhead of Little Bigelow Mountain.
Hike the Appalachian Trail to the Little Bigelow lean-to. Our first night, in our sleeping bags, seven hikers and the two of us, lined up inside the shelter like hot dogs in buns, nine to a package. Cozy? Yes.
day 2
Upon waking, find that the red squirrels have eaten holes in our packs. Perhaps working in tandem with the mice who had left their tidy little turds near the squirrel-chewed holes. I knew we would be in their home, but I didn’t realize we would be in their toilet.
Hike the AT to Safford Notch Campsite. Stewart gets her rhythm. I’ve had my stride since we began yesterday. Except when I am cold or the bugs bother me. Hmm… August in Maine. There are way too many bugs and that’s the way it is.
night 2
No shelter, we’re tenting. Fearsome winds blowing throughout the night. Nylon tents have very thin walls. You can hear the wind right through them. Unless the flapping fabric is too loud.
day 3
In the photograph, our trail goes along this ridge.
Sign the register with our trail names. Muffin and Muffin. Don’t ask.
Dinner tonight is pasta, tomato with mozzarella. It’s retched, but at least there is plenty of it.
night 3
A lean-to tonight. Still windy. The wooden walls of our shelter provide more reasonable protection from the wind.
Meet a couple of guys who will be sharing our habitations. Easily fall into conversation about the Grateful Dead, Richard Brautigan, one of my favorite authors, and the New Physics.
Somewhere along the way on our hike today, we learn that moose turds look like fireballs.
day 4
Hike AT over Myron Avery Peak and camp at Avery Memorial Lean-to. Avery was one of the big deal guys who brought the Appalachian Trail to life. He should have a peak and a lean-to.
Mount Avery: sign and triumphant hiker at the summit
As we arrive at the shelter, a couple is leaving. They are from Cotesville, Pennsylvania! Cotesville is on the other side of the state from home… Not sure why this is a thrill.
While taking in the breeze and views from Avery Peak, I ponder that this is beautiful for real and not a beautiful, two-dimensional photograph. This is real, this is here, laid out before us. I could reach out and touch it in real life if only my arms were a little longer.
night 4
After dinner we get to chatting with two more hikers, both sporting outrageous beards. They have been on the trail a long time. My partner, Stewart, and I are on vacation, spending most of the week in western Maine. These two have been living on the trail for the past four months. Makes me want to sell everything and grow a beard.
Finally the wind abates. It is quiet. We can hear the night sounds. I can’t tell you what they are because at night, these sounds can be anything, eh?
day 5
Hike the Appalachian Trail back over Avery Peak — danged if the wind doesn’t pick up again — and down to camp at Safford Notch.
day 6
Hike Safford Brook Trail and East Flagstaff Road back to the car and to the airport.
Stewart says as we begin our flight descent into Boston, “We climbed higher than this.” And still, this is a leisurely trip in terms of mileage, 27.2. We did some climbing over six days, 3700 feet up and 3700 feet down. Very comfortable.
wildlife
What do we see on our hike? Two moose, one small flock of idiot turkeys, a million red squirrels, a three-legged frog and many of its four-legged brethren, soaring hawks, egrets and, while we don’t see any, we sure hear the loons. Many Canada jays visit with us, one perches on the toe of my boot as I recline on a rock eating my lunch, another on the end of my hiking stick….
Occasionally, in the forest, we hear rushing water. One of our brethren hikers we meet at a shelter explains to us that the sound of rushing water is really fish friction. The sound comes from the fish rubbing against the water as it swims by.
Fish friction.
flora
We tromp through blueberry and cranberry, mushroom, aster and goldenrod, spruce, diapensia and dozens more I can’t identify.
names
Firewardens Trail, Horns Pond Trail, Moose Falls Campsite, Saddleback Junior, Black Nubble, Old Mans Head and of course, Timothy Bigelow, a blacksmith who served under Benedict Arnold and might have been the first white man to climb Mount Bigelow.
what else
Before going to the airport, we drive into Portland and, with a six-day sweat on us, enjoy an early lobster dinner in a restaurant. They seat us away from the other diners.
It’s time to go home, our home that has an address. We’ve been reveling in a different kind of home, even if just for five and a half days. We go to the place with an address, touch base and then get the hell back here to our other home, the wilderness.
