Date: 2013-09-14
From: Horns Pond Lean-tos

To: Long Falls Dam Road
Miles today: 14.4
Weather: clear sky

Well, I did get up & out pretty early, a little after 5:30. The rain had stopped, but it was quite misty, with less & less visibility as I went up the mtn. I thought I was doing quite well: 2.6 miles to West Peak in just over 1.5 hours. Cold & windy up there, with practically no visibility. I got to come down into the woods a little between the peaks. That's where I had hoped to camp last night. Avery campsite didn't seem as exposed as the attendant had made it sound, but it would still have been nasty getting there in the rain. The spring nearby had water running INTO it from rocks higher up!Myron Avery was one of the early leaders of the ATC [chairman from1931-52] & the first "2000-miler" because he personally measured every mile of the original trail. As a memorial to his outstanding volunteer efforts, the East peak of Bigelow was named Avery Peak. No visibility from there either, altho I know there are wonderful views of Flagstaff Lake to the North & Sugarloaf to the South.I finally got to see a corner of the lake thru the clouds on my way down to Safford Notch. That's where I also started to meet other hikers: first slack-packers: Ski (SOBO), Grey Wolf, Red Tail, & Airborne [the last 3 had been at The Cabin when I was]. Then I met someone who was giving out candy to hikers. He told me he had given it all to 3 thru-hikers he found under a rock, & suggested that if I asked them, they'd probably give me some. Sure enough, on less than half an hour [mabe 10:00?], I found Genie, Duffle-Miner, & Smack under a huge boulder, where they had spent the night, keeping mostly dry. They did give me some candy. I saw them again pretty soon ¢ after they got out of their sleeping bags, they passed me on the way to Little Bigelow All morning, I had felt I was missing all the good views. Well, I finally got some from Little Bigelow, which seemed to go on forever. After some fairly dry sections, the Trail was a lot wetter coming down, even tho it hadn't rained for quite a while.I stopped briefly at Little Bigelow shelter, in part to visit the privy. I remembered it as a "two-holer" with a cribbage board in between. Apparently, they've repainted it without repainting the cribbage board! This is also a shelter with bathtubs ¢ or at least, some water-produced holes in the rocky creek-bed. A cold bath!At the bottom of the Mtn. is East Flagstaff Road. This is another good example of poor Trail-marking when the Trail does not go straight across a road. North-bound hikers see blazes across the way to show that they should go along the road to the right. So far, so good. A little bit down the road is a tree with a double blaze. Ah! That must be where we turn off into the woods. No, the only path near that tree has been blocked off. So the next place to turn is into the parking lot. No blazes there, but it sure looks promising, especially when we see the rock-lined path going up the hill. But that leads to a bunch of dead-ends. Some day-hikers arrived in the parking lot, & I asked if they knew where the AT went. They didn't, but they had a useful suggestion: Since the Trail crosses Bog Brook Road in another half mile, why not go down to the "Y" & back up that road till I see the Trail? As I set off to do that, I discovered a sign, a hundred or so feet down the road, that showed me where the Trail went into the woods. They certainly could improve the situation by getting rid of that double blaze & putting a single blaze just past the parking lot, so we know the AT doesn't turn in there. I think all the trail clubs should get together & come up with a common protocol for such road crossings: something to reliably tell the hiker which way to turn & how far.Once I got back on the AT, I had only a couple of miles to go (over one hill), to Long Falls Dam Road, where Susan was waiting to pick me up. Another long ride back to Bingham (really close to Caratunk), but nice to have a night off the Trail.