Phew! I'm feeling muscles in my lower legs I've never felt before. Paul, Joy and I parked at intersection of Tim Pond Rd and Canada Rd early Sat morning. The drive from Stratton to our trailhead took about 45 minutes, as Tim Pond Road was plowed and in excellent condition. Began our hike at 5:45 a.m. Within 5 minutes our eyelashes were covered w/ iceballs and our quads and butt cheeks were cold. It was a very frosty morning! Joy repeatedly said "I'm just so happy we're not camping out!!!" Knowing we'd be driving back to a warm hotel room @ the end of the day kept her going. After an hour or so, with the sun shining brightly, I was able to take off my neck warmer, and my legs had finally warmed up.
We barebooted it on a packed snowmobile trail all the way up to about a quarter mile from White Cap summit, breaking trail w/ snowshoes until we got to the boundary marker on the CA/US boundary swath which would lead us to Boundary Peak, about 3 miles away. Ran into some really thick, snow covered spruce and fir on our descent from White Cap (Joy started to get a bit cranky through this section). Paul did a great job just plowing through. Other than that, we were able to move @ a pretty good pace all day. We arrived at our halfway point, Boundary Peak, which was about our 12 mile mark, at 12:45, and after taking a couple of pics, made the steep descent down from Boundary. I began feeling hot spots on the balls of both my feet about half-way down, but didn't feel it was necessary to do anything about it at that time. Paul was very happy to finish the steep ascent back up to the boundary marker, as we all were. It was quite a climb. Views were awesome from the swath. I was so excited that we'd made our goal of reaching Boundary and felt very comfortable w/ our time.
Since it was now 2:10 and, despite the sun, pretty cold, we chose to follow our tracks back up, over and down White Cap, back to the snowmobile trail, foregoing Kennebago, which we didn't think we'd have time for anyway. From the marker, we still had about 9 more miles to go. The trail along Bear Brook was long, and my feet were feeling a bit more uncomfortable, so I took off my snowshoes about halfway down. What a relief that was, as the crampons had been pressing on my hot spots.
It felt like a rather long last 3 miles, but timewise not bad. Our total mileage was about 24. We reached our car @ about 6:15 p.m. Never even felt the need to use our headlamps. It was the most rewarding hike I've been on in a while. Can hardly wait to get out again!!! Looking forward to maybe getting back up to do Kennebago and Snow before spring. When we asked Joy how she liked the hike, she simply said "Next time you two are planning a hike, don't call me, I'll call you."
We barebooted it on a packed snowmobile trail all the way up to about a quarter mile from White Cap summit, breaking trail w/ snowshoes until we got to the boundary marker on the CA/US boundary swath which would lead us to Boundary Peak, about 3 miles away. Ran into some really thick, snow covered spruce and fir on our descent from White Cap (Joy started to get a bit cranky through this section). Paul did a great job just plowing through. Other than that, we were able to move @ a pretty good pace all day. We arrived at our halfway point, Boundary Peak, which was about our 12 mile mark, at 12:45, and after taking a couple of pics, made the steep descent down from Boundary. I began feeling hot spots on the balls of both my feet about half-way down, but didn't feel it was necessary to do anything about it at that time. Paul was very happy to finish the steep ascent back up to the boundary marker, as we all were. It was quite a climb. Views were awesome from the swath. I was so excited that we'd made our goal of reaching Boundary and felt very comfortable w/ our time.
Since it was now 2:10 and, despite the sun, pretty cold, we chose to follow our tracks back up, over and down White Cap, back to the snowmobile trail, foregoing Kennebago, which we didn't think we'd have time for anyway. From the marker, we still had about 9 more miles to go. The trail along Bear Brook was long, and my feet were feeling a bit more uncomfortable, so I took off my snowshoes about halfway down. What a relief that was, as the crampons had been pressing on my hot spots.
It felt like a rather long last 3 miles, but timewise not bad. Our total mileage was about 24. We reached our car @ about 6:15 p.m. Never even felt the need to use our headlamps. It was the most rewarding hike I've been on in a while. Can hardly wait to get out again!!! Looking forward to maybe getting back up to do Kennebago and Snow before spring. When we asked Joy how she liked the hike, she simply said "Next time you two are planning a hike, don't call me, I'll call you."
