August 2011

We had this lean-to all to ourselves, but the hiker log inside
said that a moose visited it the night before us!

We camped near this lake on our last night,
you can see two shiny lean-to roofs  to the left, where we stayed. 

West Peak 4,145 ft.  Amazing 360 views!

Tam: 100% fabulous.

New band photo?

Tired pup finally learned to rest a little when we stopped.
Our command, "out of the kitchen," also worked in the camp kitchen!

Here's us waiting to cross the only place on the AT where there is a
canoe ferry because the river is too dangerous to cross alone.

Z got a vacation from the farm this year (her third year), so we joined Tam and Travis (two of our best friends, both in my folk band) on a 7 day backpacking trek along the Appalachian Trail over the Bigelow Mountain range in western Maine.  It rained a couple of days, but we hiked the 4k+ ft summits (some of the tallest in Maine) on the clearest day of our trip.  We had so much fun, stayed in the AT shelters on really rainy nights, heard trail stories from lots of through hikers, swam every day, and cooed over our mountain dog as he ran and swam at least 3 times the distance we did and still managed to launch effortlessly over rock slabs.  He wore a bear bell the whole time, and despite the trail having many signs of bears, we encountered none.  We dried a lot of our own food, including a jar of tomato sauce and apple sauce that I canned last year, so our backpacks were not that heavy and we ate some great meals.  I did make the group stop regularly to gorge on wild blueberries, and at one stop we gathered enough for breakfast the next morning.  Visit us next summer and we’ll hike Mt. Katahdin and part of the 100 mile wilderness!