Little Sister
New member
Meb and I set out from Freeport on a very cold morning. Our planned adventure for the day was to climb N and S Crocker and Reddington!! We met up with Cath, our fearless driver, who braved CVR and brought us to within a mile of the trailhead. There was another car, and we had high hopes that whoever else got here first was ahead of us breaking trail!
But, when we arrived at the AT, we found that the trail was untouched.
So, for the first time this winter, on went the snowshoes!! I was happy that they were not going to be dead weight on my back. The first mile of the trail was rather pleasant and we all enjoyed the look and feel of winter….we’d been waiting a long time for this. The second mile of the trail felt like it went straight up. We took turns breaking trail on this vertical section, and Meb got to engage the “lifts” on her very fancy new snowshoes. She noted how much easier it was to go uphill. I was jealous. This section of the trail was killing me. However, all steep mountain trails end, and we soon found ourselves pleasantly wandering on gentle grade again. At this point, Meb kept informing us that “we must be close to the top” and “it’s just up around the next corner” which drove me crazy It felt much longer than it probably was, but we finally made it to the spur for S Crocker. We bypassed the summit and headed to N Crocker, hoping that the winds would die down by the time we got back. It was a quick journey over and back. I liked this section of trail, for 2 reasons: 1. part of it was broken out by moose and the other part by human and 2. we dropped our packs a little before the summit, so we got a nice break.
Anyway, back atop S. Crocker, I readied myself for the worst part of this adventure…THE BUSHWHACK. I am not a fan of traveling off-trail, I just don’t find it pleasant or fun at all, and Cath and Meb had to listen to me whine for the next hour. Cath has an amazing sense of direction and she’s super fast and she took off and disappeared through the thick vegetation. Fortunately, she was willing to wait for me to catch up many times. Finally we came out onto a snowmobile trail, and we could see the tower on Reddington just up ahead. There was discussion about continuing the bushwhack to the summit, or taking the snowmobile trail, which was a much longer and roundabout way of approaching. I would have walked an extra 4 miles on trail to avoid 4 yards of bushwhack, so we took the trail to Reddington. On the summit, we enjoyed views of Abraham, Spaulding, Sugarloaf and the bigelows. We could even see Katahdin way off in the distance. We made several attempts to open the frozen canister, but our hiking poles were no match for the sub-zero temperatures.
The last 4 or 5 miles were spent on the CVR, which was packed out from snowmobilers. The moon came up and the stars came out and just when I thought I would never see the jeep again…it appeared!! Thanks to Cath and Meb for another excellent mountain adventure. One more to go!!!
But, when we arrived at the AT, we found that the trail was untouched.
So, for the first time this winter, on went the snowshoes!! I was happy that they were not going to be dead weight on my back. The first mile of the trail was rather pleasant and we all enjoyed the look and feel of winter….we’d been waiting a long time for this. The second mile of the trail felt like it went straight up. We took turns breaking trail on this vertical section, and Meb got to engage the “lifts” on her very fancy new snowshoes. She noted how much easier it was to go uphill. I was jealous. This section of the trail was killing me. However, all steep mountain trails end, and we soon found ourselves pleasantly wandering on gentle grade again. At this point, Meb kept informing us that “we must be close to the top” and “it’s just up around the next corner” which drove me crazy It felt much longer than it probably was, but we finally made it to the spur for S Crocker. We bypassed the summit and headed to N Crocker, hoping that the winds would die down by the time we got back. It was a quick journey over and back. I liked this section of trail, for 2 reasons: 1. part of it was broken out by moose and the other part by human and 2. we dropped our packs a little before the summit, so we got a nice break.Anyway, back atop S. Crocker, I readied myself for the worst part of this adventure…THE BUSHWHACK. I am not a fan of traveling off-trail, I just don’t find it pleasant or fun at all, and Cath and Meb had to listen to me whine for the next hour. Cath has an amazing sense of direction and she’s super fast and she took off and disappeared through the thick vegetation. Fortunately, she was willing to wait for me to catch up many times. Finally we came out onto a snowmobile trail, and we could see the tower on Reddington just up ahead. There was discussion about continuing the bushwhack to the summit, or taking the snowmobile trail, which was a much longer and roundabout way of approaching. I would have walked an extra 4 miles on trail to avoid 4 yards of bushwhack, so we took the trail to Reddington. On the summit, we enjoyed views of Abraham, Spaulding, Sugarloaf and the bigelows. We could even see Katahdin way off in the distance. We made several attempts to open the frozen canister, but our hiking poles were no match for the sub-zero temperatures.
The last 4 or 5 miles were spent on the CVR, which was packed out from snowmobilers. The moon came up and the stars came out and just when I thought I would never see the jeep again…it appeared!! Thanks to Cath and Meb for another excellent mountain adventure. One more to go!!!
