peakbagger
In Rembrance , July 2024
For those old enough to catch the reference, I expect a hiker who climbed Mt Cabot with his Golden Retriever is probably going to come to the realization at some point that he really didnt climb to the "top" of Cabot. I hiked on Saturday (3/31) with a couple of other folks and there was 1 to 2" of snow on the way up the cabin. We barebooted up past the intersection of old Mt Cabot trail, occasionally encountering hard ice covered with snow so it was time for microspikes. There was a hiker with a happy golden retreiver ahead of us but as we stopped to enjoy the sun at Bunnel Rock we didnt encounter them until the cabin where they were coming back from the summit. Once we headed out from the old tower spot, the snow was a bit deeper and filled in the many postholes and monorail. As usual its easy to get turned around up on the summit ridge and some of the long term blowdowns added a bit of interest. I did see evidence of some hand saw work I did last year on some of them, but one of these days, a chainsaw could get a good workout. I also got to meet one of Petchs coworkers from Sebago, who was out fo fill in his yearly 4000 footer list, as I was with two speedy hikers, it was nice to hike with someone with a moderate pace for awhile and it turned out that he is potential future neighbor.
One of the other hikers in our group was in the lead and were following the hiker and his dog's tracks. I was in the back but my "radar" indicated something odd near the summit. Within 100 feet we came out in fairly open clearing much larger than I remembered with no sign or signage. At that point I did a quick backtrack and found the actual trail to the traditional summit complete with sign. As I was breaking a fresh trail and there were no tracks coming from any other direction I expect the prior hiker missed the summit "by that much". The spot where he turned around was the blowdown patch about 100 west from the summit sign. Hope he wasnt working on the grid. As we were headed down, it had warmed up and the sun had burned off most of the fresh show. We ran microspikes down to just past the junction with the closed portion of the Mt Cabot trail (which has signs of recent use). We took off the microspikes as they started balling up and barebooted the rest of the way down. As usual Bunnel Notch trail is wet in spots and some of the wooden puncheons are rotting out.
While we parked at the trailhead, I noticed the fish raceways were loaded with brookies. Its interesting how tuned they are to being fed. Even walking along the outside of the fence it was obvious that every fish was swimming towards me. Must be interesting when they are released, since they appear to be adapted to swimming towards the person standing on the banking.
One of the other hikers in our group was in the lead and were following the hiker and his dog's tracks. I was in the back but my "radar" indicated something odd near the summit. Within 100 feet we came out in fairly open clearing much larger than I remembered with no sign or signage. At that point I did a quick backtrack and found the actual trail to the traditional summit complete with sign. As I was breaking a fresh trail and there were no tracks coming from any other direction I expect the prior hiker missed the summit "by that much". The spot where he turned around was the blowdown patch about 100 west from the summit sign. Hope he wasnt working on the grid. As we were headed down, it had warmed up and the sun had burned off most of the fresh show. We ran microspikes down to just past the junction with the closed portion of the Mt Cabot trail (which has signs of recent use). We took off the microspikes as they started balling up and barebooted the rest of the way down. As usual Bunnel Notch trail is wet in spots and some of the wooden puncheons are rotting out.
While we parked at the trailhead, I noticed the fish raceways were loaded with brookies. Its interesting how tuned they are to being fed. Even walking along the outside of the fence it was obvious that every fish was swimming towards me. Must be interesting when they are released, since they appear to be adapted to swimming towards the person standing on the banking.