I know in my heart of hearts that I am happiest when I get a chance to get outside. These days it seems more and more difficult to make the effort, regardless of the fact that I know I'll enjoy it. This year, however, I've made a commitment to two longer hikes on the AT. The first one will be a 3 day hike in Maine. The second will be a 5 day hike from PA to NJ in August. So it's time for me to get my butt back in gear. My most recent hike was one I had done before, which happened to be my longest hike to date. That time I hiked from Elk Pen through Lemon Squeezer, past the Boston Mine, and then promptly proceeded to get lost. I was basically trying to follow this hike. By mile 9ish or so, Tyger was finally exhausted and I had to carry him for a bit. Compound this with the fact that it was August and the heat was not helping. Plus there were little gnats all in my eyes, nose, ears, and mouth. As miserable as it got, I was still proud of it.
It was too bad that the only pictures I have from the first hike are low-quality ones from my last phone.
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| There she is. |
This sign indicates a portion of the hike where you have to climb up the rocks and shimmy around a tree that is growing in the way. It was actually a lot of fun and amusing to do with Tyger. I had to lift him up onto the ledge, climb up to him, and so on until we were back in a level trail. He was such a trooper.
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| Boston Mine. Filled in. Kind of cool. Kind of disappointing. |
This time around the hike was significantly shorter-- only 4.5 miles or so. Unfortunately I made the mistake of not bringing Tyger's sweater and it was colder than expected. Overall, it was still pretty beautiful. The beginning starts off at a meadow. Some people find meadows to be at their prime in spring or summer, when they're all tender and green with splashes of color from wildflowers. While I don't disagree, I do think they are one of my favorite landscapes in winter. The contrast of the rust and straw-colored grasses swaying in the breeze again the cold gray sky and dark trees is truly breath-taking.
It is then a relatively steep ascent. You know you're near Island Pond when the landscape changes from large deciduous trees to lots of rocks and mountain laurels. After a short descent, you reach Island Pond. We took this as an occasion to take a break and enjoy the view of the pond. From there, we actually took the road back instead of making it to Lemon Squeezer, which wasn't too far from there. Taking the road was actually really nice, as it was shut down to vehicular traffic for the season so we could stroll back.
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| White Blazes |
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| These ice crystal formations were all over the ground. They were pretty interesting. |
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