Actually, I don’t have close to that many words. But I do have five photos from Columbus Day Weekend that sum things up pretty well.
On Saturday, I met up with Chris and Jeff for a five-hour tour of the trails around Mount Agamenticus in York, Maine. Until 1974, Mount A. was a ski area and over 30 years later, remnants of the lifts still haunt the woods around the summit and the ski trails provide some hairy mountain bike descents and/or some nice, scenic hikes – depending upon how much you follow the rules. (I’m all for following them, even though that means staying off of trails we used to ride for years.)
We stayed away from the main summit and climbed Second Hill and Third Hill before heading to the lower trails around the reservoirs. Thanks to a newly posted map, we finally figured out that the lower loop we do laps three reservoirs (well, maybe two plus a decent sized pond). Unfortunately, after years of losing odometers and collecting multiple bikes, none of us had any real idea of the mileage we covered that day. But, it’s fair to estimate that we easily covered 16 to 20 miles under clear skies and bright leaves.
When Sunday morning rolled around, Mary and I took Oscar (the dog) up to Evans Notch (it’s just north of Fryeburg on the New Hampshire – Maine border) and hiked up to the summit of West Royce. Because this was the first big hike for Oscar since he hurt his leg back in the winter of 2005 (and my first big hike since I exploded my right quad hiking in July), we left the summit of East Royce untouched. That was a good choice as both Oscar and I were a bit slow and sloppy on the descent. But, just like on Saturday, the weather was warm, clear and bright. Warm enough, in fact, for Oscar to have a soak in a stream once we finished our descent. He spent about 5 minutes in the water, cooling off and drinking, while Mary and I laughed at ourselves for lumping up gloves, hats, fleeces and shells in our packs.
