Date: 2009-09-03
From: Safford Brook Trail

To: Maine Rt 27
Miles today: 10.4

We are back in Maine after a week at home. Our base is Kingfield, ME and we are staying at the historic Herbert Grand Hotel (c 1918).Access:North--From Kingfield we went north on Rt 27 to the town of Carrabassett Valley and turned right on Carriage Rd. There is also a sign that says Town Offices. Carriage Rd was not shown on our map. We learned about it from a local and found it on googlemaps. Follow this road straight for about 4.9 mi (very rough, but it saved us 20+ miles coming from the south on Long Falls Dam Rd off of Rt16). There is a Y at the deadend and you turn left onto E Flagstaff Rd. Go approx 4.7 mi to the parking lot for the blue blaze Safford Brook Trail. Parking for at least 10 cars.South--The Rt 27 AT parking area is on the left side of the road and approx 18 mi north of Kingfield. Parking for at least 20 cars.The Hike:We started the hike by going up the blue blaze Safford Brook Trail 2.2 mi to the AT. The first mile or so of the trail was slightly uphill, but the nicest graded trail we have walked on in Maine! The last 1.2 mi went up rather steeply, but we were able to do the whole thing in an hour.We hit the AT right in the middle of a huge boulder field. There were rocks as big as a house. We had to go around them, over them and through them. Our time immediately went from 2 mi/hr to 1 mi/hr. We had gained about 1000' on our access trail. We had another 2000' to go to Avery Peak. About half way up we hit a trail sign for 'Old Man's Head'. Underneath it was written '2000 miles to Springer'. We met K Bar (NOBO) and took photos of each other. The climb up to Avery Peak was very steep. The peak is above treeline and the views in all directions were breathtaking. It was a beautiful day with just a few clouds in the sky and the temperature was about 60 degrees...it doesn't get much better than this!We could look out and see most of Flagstaff Lake which is huge. Little Bigelow was to the east. To the south was Sugarloaf Mt and its ski trails. And to the east was the rest of Bigelow Mt. (Bigelow Mt is made up of Avery Peak, West Peak--which is slightly higher, and the Horn). Avery Peak had an abandoned building on the top which was probably used as a fire tower. We sat for a while, took in the scenery and had a snack. We went steeply down about 400' to Avery Memorial Campsite which is in Bigelow Col between Avery and West Peak. This is a really cool campsite with a caretaker and a privy and a sign that says 'Free Camping'. It was steeply up again, almost 500' to West Peak. It was one of those days that when you look back and saw what you did you went 'WOW...I was there' and when you looked ahead to what you had to do , you went WOW (again)...how am I ever going to do all of that??? West Peak was another rest and look at the view. This time, we thought we could see Crocker Mt., the next big 'bump' going north on the trail. The top of West Peak falls off dramatically to the south. The trail took us along the edge of this on rock slabs and then over large boulders for almost the next mile. The drop was precipitous at times. It was almost 2 miles from West Peak to the top of South Horn. We went up and down for what seemed like a long time. Finally a steep up to the top of South Horn. It was much harder than the terrain showed on our trail map...perhaps the other peaks did us in (and it was our first day back on the trail after a week of doing nothing...and Burly Girl was sick as a dog with a head cold!).We had lunch on South Horn and along came Pickle and Crusty...two NOBOS we had met several months ago in TN. They were looking good and very excited to be getting close to their goal.Again, the views from South Horn were the same 'WOWS' as described above. We had a great view down onto Horns Pond and the Horns Pond Lean To's (there are 2 of them). In a short 20 minutes we descended about 750' down and were having a snack inside an historic lean to that had been constructed in the 1930s by the CCC near the 2 newer lean tos. It is a day use only facility so we took advantage. Then it was a hard up (again, doesn't look like much on the map, but it was a hard climb up to our last peak of the hike). From there it was almost 2000' down over the next 2 miles with some big boulders and some downward slabs that required hand-over-hand. We saw at least 3 more NOBOS that were trying to get up to either the campsite or the lean to to position themselves for the Kennebec ferry in 2 days. From the Cranberry Stream Campsite the trail got a lot better and was almost level. We crossed Stratton Brook Pond Rd and Stratton Brook (on a nice bridge...thanks MATC!). It was another mile to Rt 27 and unfortunately it was up about 200' and wearing due to the long day and hard climbs. Burly Girl & Bugsy...doing the AT one day at a time...