Saddleback

So, yesterday Kristen and I took the Appalachian Trail up Saddleback mountain. It's about 9 miles east of Rangeley, Maine. A bit cool day it was, around 45 in the valley, and 40 or below up top. Starts off pretty steep, then gradual uphill for 2 miles to Piazza Rock Lean-to. There's a cool privy there (see pictures) and it's a nice shelter. After that, some steep uphill to Ethel Pond, then fairly gradual uphill past a few more ponds. Quite a bit of snow in the woods still, partly frozen. Made things slow going, especially on the way back because the snow had softened up some and I kept punching through up to my knees. Anyway, about a mile of steep uphill after the third pond. Took a break just below treeline to have some sandwiches and apples. Once we got above treeline the snow was gone but the wind was howling. Strong enough to blow us sideways as we were walking along. Made it to the summit about 1:20, took a few pictures, and hurried down. It was cold up there! The camera batteries died right after our summit shot, so i didn't get any pictures after that. Going down was rather hard on both of our knees for some reason. Guess we're not used to that sort of hiking after a long winter. I think it took longer going down than it did to go up... Anywho, back to the car around 4:30 or so. It was about 11.4 miles altogether, and we averaged about 2 miles/hour. Suprisingly, we were both more worn out than after hiking Katahdin. Not sure why. We went to bed before 10 and were probably asleep before 10:15. We were tired. Today both our legs are pretty tight and sore. Glad we got out and did that.
Originally we were planning on doing a long hike, like the 100-mile wilderness, but we decided we didn't have time for that. Then we decided we'd just do an overnight. We wound up just doing that day hike and that's fine with me. I was worn out, and it would have been a long cold night if we'd stayed out.
Well, in the middle of some packing right now. Check out the pictures in their usual spot under "My Pictures" or HERE.