Pine Ellis Hostel in Andover, ME
I'm back! This morning I took a 2 mile walk to breakfast and my tummy stayed well behaved enough to allow me to hike. One advantage of my recent sickness is I got to eat at Moonbeamz twice. This time I got eggs florentine which was perfect.
Bruce gave me a lift back to Graffton Notch where I had left the trail and northward I started. The inital climb was not bad and I made good time to the first shelter where I took a short break. I was feeling good and energentic though my feet protested a bit having gotten used to the easy life.
That was were the good trail design ended though. I have broken down my analysis of my hiking pace to a science. If the trail has good footing I usually hike at about 2.5 miles and hour. Add to this I usually climb mountains at about 2,400' an hour. What this means is that I find rises of about 1000' per mile to fit my pace rather well. If the rate of assent is shallower than that I cruise right up the mountains. If the rate of assent is steeper than that horizontal distance no longer matters as the limiting factor is my abilty to assend. Usually I find trail designers have kept to around this range which means I find many climbs tough but uncomfortable. Well around here it seems they didn't get that memo as the uphills are absurd. It was so rough climbing the West Peak of Baldplate Mt. that I actually got lightheaded and dizzy. It did not let up there with almost every up and down being sudden and crazy steep.
The top of bladplate was very nice though. The top, being rather flat, had a wonderfully diverse range of plants and mosses. One thing that has become prevelant on summits around he that isn't so much so down south is clover. This, drawf pine trees, and hardy scrubs round out the picture of what is up top.
The views were good and I got many shots of the mountains rolling off to the horizon.
In the saddle between the three Baldplate Mountains was goregous medow with a line of bog bridges across.
Finally I headed down hill to East B Hill Road that leads to Andover. Along the way I passed trail junctions for blue blazes that led to some nice waterfalls. I went up one a few feet caught a glimpst of one. The small pour over, the rock formations, and sound promissed a lot more to come. However I had heard the road crossing was a tough hitch and elected to make more time for the that. Just before the road I crossed a small stream that had a small waterfall pouring into glassy calm pool. I got a good picture of that I think.
I am glad I didn't side trip and made it to the road with over an hours day light but cause in about 90 minutes I saw 15 cars. Finally one picked me up just as I was losing hope to the nigthfall.
In town I grabbed dinner and then headed over the Pine Ellis of which I have heard good things about. Unfortunatly they were packed. There was a big town festival and the relatives were in to enjoy it. All the bed space inside was taken. Finally they found me a spot in a old camper in the back yard. It was a small one so my upper bunk is only about 18' from the ceiling but I am manageing.
I'm thrilled to be back on the trail again. I am feeling much better and can not wait till Katahdin.
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