Date: 2008-09-01
From: Stratton Pond parking area

To: Safford Brook tentsite
Miles today: 0.0

Its 7:45 pm, and I am sitting on my sleeping bag in the tent, at Safford Brook tentsite below the Bigelows. A freshman group from Harvard came in a few minutes ago and set up a tarp maybe 30' above our site, on a tent platform. We warned them that the outhouse odors were wafting over there, (which is why we chose a gravel site further down the hill), but they seemed not to mind. Their base of operations is down the path a bit, so they have disappeared temporarily.For a 5 mile hike, this was quite a work out. Even Tom says he's beat, and Tom is a pretty athletic guy. We came out to the Sugarloaf area this morning, with three days worth of supplies in our backpacks. We made a loose plan to start at the Fire Warden's Trail, and take it from there.Its Labor Day, and we passed many cars and RV's heading south. Lots of them. I feel grateful to live so close to mountains like these, and to be able to take a short trip now and then.We drove in toward Stratton Pond and parked, and started walking about 12:15. Yet another sunny, mild day with gentle breezes. Our last trip together was in June, right after I came back from VA. It was nice to be saddled up and on our way to an "as yet to be determined" tentsite. The woods at the beginning of the Fire Warden's Trail were lovely, with hints of fall in the red maple leaves cast about on brilliant green moss and slate colored rock.The elevation began to increase sharply after the first half hour or so. Eeek. Whoever built the granite stairs/retaining blocks, had a heck of a job to do. I glanced ahead at one point and saw a spiral of almost vertical steps disappearing into the heights. I deeply appreciate the rock work done on trails like these, but I also feel stressed by the amount of effort needed to climb them. I was fine for awhile, when I realized I was tiring and had to stop for half a minute every 50' or so. Tom surged ahead and went up without stopping, possibly the happy result of his thrice weekly mountain bike riding. At Avery Col campsite we decided to move on to Safford Brook, which would take us up and over Avery Peak and down a lengthy, also steep descent to the notch. We took a short break nestled in behind the old fire tower, taking in panoramic views of the valleys and mountains surrounding us. We could look directly across at Sugarloaf, our sons' second home through out their high school winters. It looked like a wall of mountain riddled with pale green swaths. On the other side of the peak, all the inlets and islelets of Flagstaff lake sparkled in the sun.We started down from Avery Peak, hoping to get down to the notch in an hour, but it took me almost 2. At 6:30 we were poking our way through the campsite, looking for a good place to camp. It doesn't take us long to set up the tent, and before long we were cooking up a new dish Tom had made for us. He has a dehydrater that has been busy lately, this time with a chili recipe for backpackers. I expected some chewy beans and tomato bits, but was happy to find it was wonderful. It gets dark around 7:45 now, so we cleaned up and went to bed by 8:30. Both of us had brought 3 season sleeping bags, which were just a bit too warm for the evening temps. But we slept til 6 the next morning, nontheless. Auntie Mame