ACC Maine Hiking Camp - Day 6

Saddleback and The Horn

September 19, 2014

Na, Lynne, and I drove down to Saddleback ski resort, while Deb, Don, Sharon, and Cathy drove further to catch the Appalachian trail approach. It was a cold morning at -2 degrees, but not a cloud in the sky meant that we were in for a treat on the ridge. The ascent up the ski hill went quickly, and we were standing on the summit cairn in just over an hour. The wind was cold so we hunkered down in a rock shelter for a quick break before continuing on towards The Horn. This was a fabulous open ridge walk, with some fun scrambly bits here and there, and the occasional icy stretch had us treading with care. In another hour we summited The Horn, where we could see all the way to Katahdin (we think). It was cold and windy though so we did not stay long and descended to a lower place where we found a nice warm and sunny ledge for another break. We watched a group of four descending from Saddleback and thought it was Debbie's group, but alas, it was a gang from New Hampshire. We climbed back up to Saddleback. At the summit Debbie's group was also just arriving, while the radio started squaking with Patrick, Jim, and Paul on the summit of Bald mountain, 20 km away. The Bald team unfurled a big yellow tarp from the top of the fire tower and we were able to see it with some binoculars. It was still cold up here so we did not stay very long and began to make our descent via the AT. We met many through hikers, as well as about a dozen friendly folk from a local hiking club. We stopped for a big lunch by a very pretty lake and then pushed on to "The Caves" which were a bunch of jumbled boulders where a trail wound under, over, and through with many scrambles and squeeze chimneys. Several places had us sheedding our packs to fit through. At the top, the trail seemed to disappear and we bushwhacked and scrambled into a kind of rocky amphitheatre where we took a break. I scouted a different route down and found an old grown in trail and decided to take it. A bit of bushwhacking ensued, and at one point Lynne took a tumble after a birch tree she grabbed broke off in her hands. Fortunately she had a soft landing in leaves and pine needles and was not hurt. We found our way down the rest of the way carefully and safely. Another hour of easy hiking brought us to the trailhead after 8.5 hours of hiking. There were a whole group of AT hikers here, all trying to hitch into town and we took a couple of them who had married and were hiking the AT as their honeymoon. A great day to be in the mountains.

Ascending Saddleback ski hill.