Old Speck: October 1, 2015

Mountain: Old Speck
Elevation: 4,170 (Maine's 5th Tallest, New England's 40th Tallest)
Route: Old Speck Trail
Mileage: 3.8 miles
Arya's Take: Booooooored Now


The reality of me hiking the New England 4,000 footers with my dog has usually been that I'm seeing a lot of old familiar places.  As I've mentioned in the past, I finished the 48 new Hampshire 4,000 footers when I was 15, so there isn't a whole lot of new ground for me to cover, so to speak.  Now, having moved to Vermont, I was able to do this a couple times, mainly with Arya's first-ever 4,000 footer, Killington.  But even then, I'd been hiking in Vermont before, and even though I hadn't done Killington, it's not like I was new to hiking in the Green Mountains.

This changed when we did Old Speck.  In an interesting quirk, Old Speck is actually the eastern-most peak in the White Mountains, technically belonging to the range that you probably associate most with New Hampshire.  It's right over the border in Grafton Notch, and so it was a natural starting point.  As a stroke of luck as well, I'd decided to take the better part of two weeks off after my wife and I got married (which I would strongly encourage of anyone getting hitched; we did NOTHING for two days after the wedding itself and it was incredibly restful), so I plotted to head up on October 1, figuring that it would still be reasonably warm up there.  Besides, I really had no idea what to expect from Maine, given that if I'm in it I'm more often than not down in Portland or Kennebunkport.  So I was excited.

Now, before I get into the actual hike, let me tell you that I'm glad I did this on vacation and not over a normal weekend, because it turns out, getting to this part of Maine from central Vermont is freaking impossible.  I headed out at the break of dawn (though it's October, so that was at like 7:00), and it took two hours and 45 minutes to just MAKE the trailhead.  Granted it was a pretty drive, as I got to head through far-northern New Hampshire and past the Presidentials on my way, but I really had no concept for what to expect once I got into Maine.  See, Vermont and New Hampshire are, much like most New England states, tiny.  I can be in 5 states and 1 Canadian province within a 3 hour drive of my house.  Maine, though, is the closest we have to a normal-sized state, and even when we crossed the border, we had many miles to go.  I'd actually asked my wife if I could borrow her CR-V to drive there instead of my Prius, since even though the gas mileage would be worse, her headlights are much better than mine, and I honestly had no idea when Arya and I would be making the trip back.

So we eventually puttered into the parking lot for Old Speck around 10:00, which was I supposed a little on the late side, and I jumped out of my wife's car to discover that it was FUCKING FREEZING.  Now I'm never one to start a hike layered up, since I sweat pretty much immediately and have to pause 10 minutes in to pack everything up, but when I saw that it was 37 degrees outside, I knew even I couldn't start in shorts and a tee shirt.  Arya was, of course, fine, as well as annoyed that I was taking so long to get ready.  And, reader, I'll have you know that I didn't devolve into a sweaty mess for 20 minutes.

Apart from that, though, it was a lovely New England fall day.  There was a fair amount of valley fog we had to contend with to start, which obscured some of our views of the notch when we'd gotten high enough (in the picture above, which was right by a cut-off rather weirdly named "The Eyebrow".  The leaves hadn't started to change really at all in Vermont or Massachusetts, but it was like heading 6 weeks into the future up in Maine.  This was especially odd to me, since I had felt like summer had persisted far further thanks to our wedding (the weather we had on the day itself felt more like July than September), and now the world was playing catch-up.

Arya and I followed a stream up past the Eyebrow, trying to get beyond the fog.  I was able to use my Maine Mountain Guide for the first time, and was struck at how much longer it seemed to be taking to get to the top of the ridge.  This really wouldn't surprise you if you looked at any topographical map worth its salt, but I had anticipated really being able to get on top prior to lunch time, and that looked less and less like it was going to happen.

Not that it wasn't a pleasant hike, of course; there was a peculiar flower/moss hybrid plant that kept following us as we went up the trail, but with the fog obscuring any views that we might have, once we left the path of the stream, there wasn't a whole lot to keep my interest.  I got a particularly annoying song stuck in my head, and with Arya charging ahead, there wasn't a whole lot I could do about it.

The other thing that really started to annoy me was a series of...well, they weren't quite false peaks, but they certainly made me feel like they were in my way.  After each one, I was convinced that we would start ascending Old Speck proper any minute now, and my hopes kept getting dashed.  I did start to feel a glimmer of hope when the clouds began to break enough for use to start getting some views, as well as using my Dad's old trick of watching the size and composition of the trees in the surrounding forest to gauge how high we were.  Eventually we reached the junction with the Mahoosuc Trail, which is where we left the AT and when I knew that we only had 0.3 miles to go till the summit.

And unfortunately, once we got there, it turned out to be a bit of a letdown.  The summit itself was just a dirt clearing surrounded by trees.  I mean, this is Maine's 5th tallest mountain, which is farther north and significantly taller than mountains like Camel's Hump or Abraham, and yet they had wonderful views in all directions.  Of course, there was a fire tower on top (seemingly the last one standing in the Whites; the Guide makes mention of plenty of former towers on summits),  but the ladder was vertical and Arya wasn't really feeling it.

The clouds continued their valiant attempts to break, though without the tower there wasn't much good it was going to do me, so I settled in for lunch.  Arya didn't really want anything to do with her lunch at first, patiently waiting me out to see if I would grow bored with mine, and I read up in the Maine Mountain Guide about the surrounding area and why, exactly, Old Speck is a holdover in the Whites.

I also looked at the maps that came with the guide for all regions of Maine, and realized that Old Speck might be our only Down East 4,000 footer for some time.  Most of the rest are located even farther north along the New Hampshire border (and look like a great series of hikes), but GODDAMN it would take all day to just get up there to do the likes of the Bigelows or Saddleback.  I've since resolved to make a weekend camping trip out of them, but Arya wasn't read for overnights yet.  And don't get me started on Katahdin.

I learned from my in a text over lunch that October 1 is National Black Dog Day (because every day seems to now be National or International *Something* Day), so with that in mind I gave Arya the last little bite of peanut butter and bread from my sandwich, and we headed back down.  The subpeaks were still annoying, and it seemed to take forever to get back to the Eyebrow.  I guess that's the blessing and curse of having a landmark or junction to look for right by the beginning of the trail, since on the way up you basically know "We haven't gone nearly that far yet", and on the way down you spend a looooooong time muttering "Where the hell is the Eyebrow"?  This wasn't helped by me knowing exactly how long it was going to take us to get home once we were done with the hiking bit, and how tired I would be when we did get home.

Eventually, though we were overlooking the Notch again, this time bathed in the fading autumn sunshine, and by the time we got back to the car, it was completely clear.  Arya did her customary "zonk out for the entire ride home" bit, and I was treated to another spectacular view as we passed through Gorham, NH and the Prezzies again, as the peaks of Mts. Madison and Adams were dappled in the twilight even as dusk came to the valley floor.  We did end up needing the CR-V's headlights on the way home, though only for the home stretch, and I felt good out our first foray into Maine hiking, even if it would be some time before we would be able to try it out again.  And, as mentioned previously, an October 1 hike would usually be seen by me as a nice cap to the season before swapping my hiking boots and pack fro skis and poles, but we still did have one last gasp, even as Autumn began to cede to Winter over the New England High Peaks.

Next up: Completing the set in VT!

-M

Osceola East Peak: September 5, 2015

Mountain: Osceola East Peak
Elevation: 4,156 (New Hampshire's 34th Tallest, New England's 41st Tallest)
Route: Mount Osceola Trail
Mileage: 1.0 mile
Arya's Take: My Dad is STILL Waaaaaaay Overprotective

So with it not even being noon, Arya, our friend and I set off from the top of Mount Osceola to its East Peak, which lingered around a mile to our, well, east.  Having properly psyched myself out about how hard the trip was going to be, we descended off to the left of the old fire tower, and back into the woods.  We had been able to see our objective while we were resting on the summit, which I suppose is nice, given that it didn't really seem too far away.  Arya didn't really want to depart from the summit quite when we were ready to, but after we got going, she was all in.

As with most of the mountains that we've been climbing as Arya's worked on the list, I racked my brain to try and remember my impressions of East Osceola from when I did it with my Dad (and our black lab, Max) all those years ago.  Honestly, not a lot was coming up, which made me a bit nervous, as the White Mountain Guide made special mention of a chimney section that seemed like it would give us a hard time.  Well, that it would give Arya a bad time.  Honestly the main thing I remember from the hike up with my Dad was peering down the back side of East Osceola and him mentioning that Greely Pond was down there, and that it was a bitch and a half to climb up East Osceola first.  So we went onwards, a little blind.

And I think mainly because I has psyched myself out about it, I kept anticipating when the chimney would be.  The whole mountain turned out to be quite steep, which I should have probably guessed considering that East Osceola drops the required 200 feet of prominence from the main peak over only half a mile.  At any rate, the trail did drop off almost immediately, though each time I was convinced that we had just arrived at (or more frequently, we had just passed) the chimney, there was another section of steep rocks ahead.  We had to wait every now and then for a hiker ascending to pass us, yielding what we could to someone who was having a much worse go of things than we were.  But, eventually, we got to the chimney itself.

And almost by accident!  Arya charged ahead on the extendo-leash, as she usually does, and was out of sight briefly while I was catching up.  I had half a thought that she would careen over the edge, but I found her paused at the top, being a bit skeptical as to how to proceed.

Also rather thankfully, she ended up deciding that the best route was off to the left, where there was a slope that, while steep, wasn't straight down.  Our friend decided to try her luck at the chimney itself, and we congregated with some other hikers at the bottom, all waiting for various friends and family members to catch up.  And from there, it was a rather nondescript trek to the summit, through a little flat bit at the col of the ridge, and then a moderate but not too strenuous ascent.  We ended up arriving basically at noon, and took the opportunity to have some lunch.  Arya snarfed hers down immediately (SOP), and then amused herself by going after some mountain flies.  They have a habit of staying absolutely still until disturbed, and then they swarm up and buzz around in one huge mass.  Arya had a blast.

I was also able to show our friend the joys of the Lindblad family lunch packing technique, ie, a squished blob in a plastic bag that at one point had been a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  There was some jelly making a purple stain on one side of the bread, and on the whole it was still edible, but we never were a family with much thought into where our food needs to get stashed.  My Dad always said that it looks the same in the end anyway.

From the summit of Osceola East (being that it's completely wooded we didn't really spend much time there except to eat), we made our way back to the chimney, and Arya and I decided that the easier route would still be the side trail to the right, and our friend took the chimney again to see what it'd be like on the ascent.  After waiting worriedly at the top for her, Arya was satisfied and we were back on the summit of Osceola in no time.  It was crowded with a lunch rush, and it was difficult to find a spot for us to take a snack at first.  Arya was also a little sick of being in the sun after a few minutes, and took the chance to crash under one of the old concrete supports that was left over from the fire tower that used to be on the summit.  I chatted with some nice people from Virginia who were up for Labor Day, and when they found out I was from Vermont they of course immediately asked me about this Bernie Sanders guy and what we all thought of him (this has, over the intervening months, only become more and more common when people hear where I live).

Apart from that, the rest of the hike down was, I'm sure you'll be shocked to hear, rather uneventful.  It was nice to catch up with our friend, and to see what she thought of the upcoming hockey season, and what she thought of her Osprey framepack, as I was in the market for one and have *loved* the 18 liter daypack I have from them.  She also asked how I and me then-fiancee were doing, as September 5th was a mere 10 days before our wedding (everything went great!).

From there, we headed our separate ways and Arya and I went back to the Farm, to find everyone lounging around the pool and enjoying their Labor Day.  And most years, a September hike might be the last one of the year, but this season turned out to be a little different.  After a couple weeks off (wedding, after all), Arya and I put our sights to a place neither of us had ever hiked before: Maine.

-M