ACC Maine Hiking Camp - Day 2

Bigelow Mountain - Avery Peak, West Peak, and both Horns

September 15, 2014

Deb, Na, Don, and I drove down to the Bigelow preserve and without too much difficulty, found the parking area. We hiked quickly along the cart track until we arrived at a small river where we found a bridge that was under construction, but not bridging the stream. It was unclear where the trail went from here. Lots of boot prints led to a beaver dam crossing, which we followed but resulted in a nasty bushwhack back to the bridge area where we regained the trail, area which then climbed slowly up towards the col. The weather was fantastic, though fairly cool, and as we got higher frost appeared on the trees and was dripping off like rain in the sunshine. Towards the top of the fire warden trail was a great stone staircase which provided for a fairly civilized climb up to the col. We finally reached it and met a somewhat nutty through hiker who told us that we should not summit right now because it will be nicer later. We said our thanks, but climbed the last few hundred feet anyway to perfect 360 degree clear views. After finding a slightly sheltered spot below the old fire tower foundation, we had some lunch. A quick scoot back down to the col and another short climb brought us up to West Peak which was another nice summit. We continued along the ridge towards the horns and passed many through hikers, including a guy we had met yesterday, and a couple who were going to be the first Italians to complete the Appalachian Trail. Both horns were climbed easily and we had lunch on the North summit, enjoying views of the route we had come and also to the west, all the way out to the White mountains. The descent was long, but fairly uneventful. Debbie ran the last few kilometers because she wanted to "raise our average speed" on her GPS record. At the river, we took the rock hop across which was much easier than the beaver whack of the morning, and arrived back at the parking lot after 8.5 hours of hiking.

Sunrise over Stratton Brook Pond.