Day 1: July 29, 2006

Plan: Drop Dan's car at southern end of Grafton Loop trail, on Route 26 near Bethel, ME. Drive up to Appalachain trail road crossing on Route 26 near Newry, ME. Walk north along AT to East Baldpate, and then turn off onto Grafton Loop Trail.

The day's walk: 9.4 miles

Dan putting on a rope belt, with Matt in the background.

Everyone had stopped to wait for me at the summit of West Baldpate. I was definitely not in shape for the uphills.

Matt heading down West Baldpate toward East Baldpate, with some excellent views!

It got a little steep at times...

The sag in between West and East Baldpate cut through some nice fields.

Some cairns up above the tree line.

The view from East Baldpate, looking out toward Old Speck, where we would loop around to and end our hike in three days. Past that, I think, is the Presidential range in NH.

And then back down...

I somehow managed to cut myself twice within the first few hours. Once while cutting cheese for lunch, and one because the wind above the tree line on the way up East Baldpate blew me over, and my fingertip got peeled off on a rock.

We seemed to be on the favorite trail of the local moose population the whole time. We saw incredible amounts of scat. No moose though.

A spider exoskeleton that Dan found on his pack.

In the afternoon we stopped at Lightning Ledge to snack on some wild blueberries when a thunderstorm suddenly rolled in. Given the name of the place, we jumped up and left pretty quickly.