Applauding Sunsets. Required.

An Adventure in Hiding Things

The girls arrived home from their respective campus job-related activities the day before Thanksgiving with 2 hours of daylight left!

This miracle does not happen often. Especially less frequently as the number of available daylight hours tick ever downward.

Jazz & I greeted them at the door in time to pick up on a half baked plan to drive up to Hirundo Wildlife Refuge and walk the trails before dark.
The 4 p.m. hour of falling blackness was pointed out.
It was agreed we must make haste.
Even as someone piddled away valuable minutes of lightness upon learning dogs were not welcome in an animal refuge.
And there were no Letterboxes to be discovered.
(I want to hide 2!)

"Fine. I'm Not Going."
Familiar somehow.

But this time successfully coaxed out of a funk and into the car.
And we were away.
For a 15 minute drive to one of those places right in our own backyard.
Too often forgotten about.
Overlooked as a possibility.
...when there's Nothing To Do.

I haven't been there since Tom and I hiked some of the trails when we first began looking for outdoor things to do together. In 1980.

I stuffed my coat pockets with camera, trail map and pen.
Plus the 2 Letterboxes all set to be hidden in the perfect place.
I hadn't decided where yet.
Several locations have been considered and discarded in recent weeks.
But I was certain I would know it when I saw it!

Our hiking adventure included wet feet and much puddle jumping thanks to the recent heavy rains.
A few girlie poses for the camera along the way.
And the perfect hiding spots were found for our newest Letterboxes released into the wild!

Along with a standing ovation of the setting sun.

This is a Stephani sanctioned procedure.
Participation mandatory. But why wouldn't you want to?
Everyone must applaud the setting sun.
With feeling. Like you mean it.
You will get The Look (while she applauds) if you have not responded in kind and in a timely fashion.
Why wouldn't you want to, indeed.

It was a great adventure!
I give thanks for the awesome memory of our afternoon together that lingers still.

Why aren't you out there Letterboxing?
I know where a couple of really cool ones are hiding!

Maiden Cliff trail

Letterboxing in Camden Hills State Park

I've never driven to the top of Mt. Battie in Camden.
I had never hiked any of it's trails.
Whenever we drive past the Mt. Battie autoroad we are either on another mission or the fee at the entrance gate overrules my wish to drive up.

I still want to drive up the autoroad (just once!) but Sara and I decided to spend Saturday hiking the Maiden Cliff trail on the back side of the park.

To look for Letterboxes, of course.

What a beautiful day! Fall colors have only just started changing here. We got kind of a late start and ended up in Camden after 12:30. Due to my navigational skills (or lack there of) we went past Rt 52 and down into the traffic congested center of Camden. I had it in my head the turn off for the trail was on the other side of town and Rt 52 must join Rt 1 for a bit. NOT!

We decided to eat at Subway before starting our trek so it worked out well in the end. We can declare "we meant to do that!" with sincerity. We were hungry and it was probably the safest/easiest bet for food in Camden at rush hour anyway. Still took forever to be waited on, but at least there was a real bathroom for one last stop before hiking.

Once we back-tracked through traffic and found Rt 52 again, it turns out there are 2 hiking trail parking lots very close together. As navigator, I had just suggested if we come to a fork in the road we should stay right as we kept an eye open for a brown trail hiker sign. Needless to say we parked at the first hiker sign, without ever coming to a fork in the road.

We set off up the trail to the first marker before realizing something wasn't adding up. This trail would not lead us to the Maiden Cliff cross or the 3 Letterboxes hidden somewhere along the way. Recent logged "finders" promised reasonable success.

For those actually hiking on the correct trail.

Back to the car for a drive further down the highway until we found the 2nd parking lot. It looked full and cars were parked along the road as well, but Sara drove in with innocent confidence there would be a space. A car started backing out to leave at that exact moment and she could not believe her luck.

Neither could the SUV who had driven past the space, who looked as it he felt the space was his. As he backed past us to leave, for the roadside parking no doubt, if looks could deflate - Sara would have had 4 flat tires!

We got out as if we owned the space - possession being 9/10ths law - is that the saying? - and never made eye contact again, for my part.

Our compass skills not being much better than my navigational skills, the first clue began: "Just before stepping onto the first of two wooden bridges to cross the stream bed, take a reading of 160 degrees. Follow your gaze to a twin-trunked hemlock seemingly growing out of rock." We probably could have worked it out just from the description but it was like grand central station. The place was crazy with hikers coming from every direction. We decided to catch this one on the way down.

Box 2 was among a pile of rocks following the clue - easily spotted because the plastic was showing. The trail was very wet due to all the recent rain and the hiding place may actually be getting stepped on as people try to avoid the mud. I put more rocks around the box to try keeping it hidden better but there's a pretty good chance hikers will come close enough to knock it out again.

Box 3 was down over the ledge holding a giant cross commemorating a young girl who fell to her death many years ago. I had seen the cross from the road years before, but how cool to stand from behind and read the dedication.

As for the box: Sara the Brave went down into the ravine and onto the ledge to look for it. I would probably have walked away although it turned out to be much wider than it looked at first glance. This box clue also had a compass reading so once she found the box Sara cross checked the reading.

LIGHT BULB GOES OFF!

We now understand how to hold & read the compass and once we were back at box 1 - with much less traffic - the direction was easily found without wandering around in a full circle looking for a tree growing out of a rock. YAY! I've been wandering around the house taking compass readings of everything in sight.

Following a beginners compass tutorial - which makes much more sense now - from the spot I'm sitting at using their example...there should be a letterbox in our old BBQ pit.

hmmm...

Screw Auger Falls

The REAL one, that is

There are at least 2 Screw Auger Falls in Maine.

When Sara was an infant we tried hiking in to the Kathadin Iron Works version, off the Appalachian Trail to Gulf Hagas.

We took turns carrying her but after half a mile she seemed to weigh a ton and it was just too much walking without the baby backpack - which had been left home on this spur of the moment adventure.

Not well thought out adventures are still a part of our family history, it seems.

25 years later and I've finally made it in, using the official trail. There's a short cut to the falls at Gulf Hagas by driving much closer, along the back roads further in. Years ago the paper company clear cut a huge section of the land that the shortcut went through and so they "closed" it.

For our safety.

Well, they put rocks across the opening and took down the signs. Anyone with a memory still knew where it was.

The trail had been worn deep by a hundred thousand feet and would take an age to disappear completely back to the wild.
It's a much easier walk, with no river crossings and so was a much safer trek for children or the elderly. We took mom that route a few years ago for an autumn leaf peeping expedition and she was quite thrilled to make it in, at her age and with limited vision.

UPDATE:
The Appalachian Mountain Club purchased much of surrounding land and has put up restrictions for vehicle use, but Tom tells me you can get as far as the bridge to park near the shortcut, which is being maintained again. Big locked gates shut out all but the wealthy who can afford to pay membership dues & fees to much of the fishing in the area, but the trail is open once again.

They own it, that's their right.

But don't tout conservation as noble cause, if what you really mean is "let's keep the land pristine so rich people from out of state can continue to enjoy exclusive Maine Vactionland playgrounds." (i.e. Moosehead lake/Plum Creek controversy)

But I digress!

I made it to the falls. Tom even convinced me to climb down into the gorge and wade cross the freaking falls so we could eat our lunch in the most beautiful spot on earth.

I admit I never really relaxed completely until we were both safely back on top. But it was worth the effort, if only for the photo shoot. And the reminder not to be such a chicken, as it was not really as difficult as my fear imagined it would be.

Multitasking

Hiking, Fishing and lost Letterboxes

Tom has Fridays off as vacation days for most of the summer, so of course I checked on possible hidden Letterbox sites that might be along the way, once he stated his intentions of going to Blanchard for the day.
Most of Maine's Letterboxes seem to be in the southern part of the state and not much was listed past Bangor, north to Monson.
I did find one jpeg clue in Brownville Junction listed on a Yahoo group site that we thought we recognized. Pretty sure it's on the Appalachian Trail to Gulf Hagas.
(picture contains the clue.)

Our "Almost There" picture found us almost at Screw Auger Falls in the Katahdin Iron Works region.

Tom decided to go to Brownville fishing instead.

On the off chance we could multitask.

But first we went fishing. I caught the first fish!
We had our limit by lunch time and decided there was time to look for the treasure. And more hiking.

No Luck finding the box.
There's no updates on the letterbox.org site so it could be a very old clue and perhaps the letterbox has been long gone.

Too bad we have no clear idea what "11 paces at 40" means.
Wonder if it's a compass reading?
Wonder if I'm doing the compass thing right?

It was a Memorable Day

Memorial Day 2008

Tom and I went hiking & fishing along a section of the Appalachian Trail.

(I caught the 1st fish - a bragging right I enjoy and only achieve by sneaking ahead of him to a better pool!)

We joined a section of the trail by driving miles and miles of dirt roads beyond Blanchard - perhaps at the edge of the 100 mile wilderness along the Piscataguis river.

The promising sunny morning turned cloudy and it sprinkled a bit off & on. Fishing was slow and as we approached the "best pool" 2 men were already fishing there. One of them admitted to having 4 so we got back on the trail and hiked a half hour ahead of them to give them their space. And find some river not yet fished that morning. Hiking was excellent and although my feet went numb with the first river crossing...it wasn't so bad after the first dip.