Thanksgiving Football

Well it's Thanksgiving Day
and I just want to say
while we stay warm inside
with a spirit so gay

There are men today working
(Lions, don't let us down)
We work up an appetite
to Tom Brady's sacked frown

Let's keep it up boys,
you are doing just great!
The Steelers couldn't cut it
so Detroit, seal their fate.

An Intervention

Now that I’m back in transition, I decided to drop back into Eastern Pennsylvania for a few days. Where else would I go first? I was feeling incomplete and just very “blah.” Here is a quick list of reasons why:

1. I’ve been hanging out in the forest with a bunch of dirty boys.
2. My shower was a dark, 3 ½ foot square.
3. I haven’t blowdried my hair in three months.
4. I hardly remember how to do my makeup.
5. All of my belongings are shoved back into my tiny winter deathtrap of a car with no closet in their foreseeable future.
6. I have two pairs of shoes I can realistically wear, one of which now has a hole in the bottom. My poor cowboy boots..
7. All of the clothes I thought were clean, smell like maple syrup!

The list could go on, but it’s just too depressing to think about. In short, I needed an intervention. So I drove for 12 hours straight to come see the girl who can knock some sense into me and make me feel pretty again no matter what crazy lifestyle I’ve been living. My BFF Kara luckily had the day off today, so the first thing we did was clean our laundry. I didn’t have time to rewash everything, but it was a start. Kara painted my toenails a very “Big City Fall” color of deep purple. Finally, she surprised me with the thing I most DESPERATELY needed.

I needed it so desperately that I can’t even believe I am going to show this.

I laugh every time I look at it.

...before and after!

YUCK!! hahaha. You have to be able to laugh at yourself sometimes, right? Especially now that I'm looking and feeling so much better.


Now if you're thinking that I am shallow and superficial, ask yourself, if you were conducting a job interview, who would you rather hire? The before or the after?

this ain't exactly the southern hemisphere

At dawn's first light,

a weeks'-awaited sight!

Frost sparkles in grass

as tincho in glass...

In case you were wondering, it is starting to get cold here. The first frost I saw was at Nesowadnehunk on 10/2, on our way up the tote road to South Branch Pond to hike the Traveller loop. It was one of the most beautiful hikes I've done in the park.

I got my first real preview of the coming winter two weeks ago, when a bunch of us on the trail crew did our sunrise ascent up Katahdin. We hiked up to the backcountry campground at Chimney Pond on Friday by headlamp, where we spent the night in the yert - a small circular structure with a pentagonal windowed ceiling. After warming up a few minutes by the woodstove (which creates a heat comparable to the gates of hell in a building of that size, no matter what the temperature is outside), we walked over to the pond. Situated below the Saddle, the Knife's Edge, and all three peaks of Mount Katahdin, at an elevation around 2,700 feet, the wind across Chimney Pond was unbelievably cold and strong. It was also a clear night with a new moon, so it was only by the light of a million stars that we were able to make out the distinct outlines of Pamola, South Peak, and Baxter Peak all above us. In the morning, before a 6:30 sunrise, we climbed up to the summit via the Saddle, where we were greeted by more whipping winds and a few inches of snow on what, as I've mentioned, is the highest elevated point in the state of Maine.

Back at ground level, the highs today and yesterday were in the 40s. With overnight lows regularly below freezing, we now have to leave the faucets running overnight (this goes against everything I know, I like to tell people). We actually had to leave them running over 48 hours straight this past week, as we went on our only real "spike camp" of the season, where we camp near the trail where we are working. It was only for two nights, and I honestly wasn't really all that excited to be going because (obviously) I expected to FREEZE. However... it weren't too bad.

To backtrack: Monday was our Fall Meeting and Banquet, which I explained to Sarah is "like the Wine Fiesta of Baxter Park." It was a fun and interesting day, with every employee of the park in attendance, from the Director, Jensen Bissell, to the famous Maine author (and Daicey Pond ranger) Andy Vietze, all the way down to the measly Trail Crew interns. After the meeting, Lily (information and education department intern) and I used the mirror and plug in the bathroom at headquarters to do our hair and makeup for the first time in three months, and metamorphasize back into our civilized selves. I must say it felt good when all heads turned to us upon arrival at the fine River Drivers restaurant (incidentally, I knew where this place was because of a mishap several weeks ago). "You look like my attorney," Ned, in his Stihl hat, told me.

Since we got an eight-hour day in on Monday (usually we work four tens with three day weekends), we worked eight hour days Tuesday through Friday. We started at the usual time, 7:00, but finished work at 3:30. It was nice on spike camp because we were able to get our fire started, cook and eat dinner before dark, and get to bed literally by 7:30. The place we were staying was on Katahdin Lake, a recently acquired section of the park. It is an area just East of Katahdin, the final parcel which Governor Baxter wished to add to the now-complete park. We hiked back to the truck on Thursday, stopping to complete our most important and awesome task of the trip. A beautiful 90 year old hemlock right next to the trail had a deer stand in it (like a treehouse but basically just a chair). As you can probably guess, she had to come down.

Special thanks to my chainsaw, Mushrat.

The next day, yesterday, "work" consisted of a tour of the SFMA (with the forester, Dee) as well as some points of historical interest along the Telos section of the Golden Road (with Paul). Bitter wind brought in a few flurries of snow. This is just the tip of the iceberg, they tell me. Every day it's,"JeezumCROW, Meghan. You're Cold? Y'know this ain't exactly the southern hemisphere." Regardless, it was a great day. We'd been looking forward to this tour for awhile, crossing our fingers that it would even be a go. One look at these pictures and you'll understand why.

Shook behind the controls, in the harvester

a forwarder

Five more days here. Hmm. What's next for Miss Rainorshine?

a stroll down to the Abol store

About once a weekend I join my two favorite boys for a stroll down to the Abol store.

There are two paths (Abol Stream Trail and Abol Pond Trail), each a little under two miles, that take us out of park boundaries to a junction where the infamous Golden Road merges with the Appalachian Trail on Abol Bridge. This is where ridge runner CJ greets AT thru-hikers as they come out of the Hundred Mile Wilderness on their final stretch of trail before entering the park to summit Mount Katahdin.

Katahdin, as seen from Abol Bridge

...and a little birch bending on our way back.

green yellow red orange

yellow tunnel

red lights on the ground

four color mountainside with grey clouds

white misty morning at Trout Brook Farm

such a sweet lumberjack

A few of my readers may recall that when I was 16 I twisted my ankle pretty bad at church camp and it's never been quite the same since. Well darn if I didn't roll that same ankle (twice) yesterday while hiking down from Chimney Pond, where we spent our workweek replacing a bridge on the trail.

"Meghan, just take off your pack for a minute...Does that feel better?"

I smiled. "Yeah."

The first time I wouldn't let him take it, but I couldn't say no again. Ned swung my pack up right over his head like it weighed five pounds.

"You ready? Let's go."

I smiled at him. I didn't much mind feeling like a spoiled princess, I guess.

"Such a sweet lumberjack."

I skipped lightly from rock to rock behind him all the way down, feeling like the luckiest girl in all of Baxter.

Wednesday to Wednesday

Yesterday was the last of an eight-day workweek. We worked Wednesday to Wednesday on the annual Hunt Trail project. The Hunt Trail takes you to the Northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail (Baxter Peak), and it is the route I took when I climbed Katahdin for the first time in July. About 1.3 miles up the trail is a granite staircase which starts after you pass Katahdin Stream Falls. Many friends of Baxter Park volunteer annually on this project on their long Labor Day weekend. It was great to meet and work with all of them, in addition to working for the first time out of training with our own trail crew.

There were three stations between which we all switched day to day. The Monster was located on the portion of trail where the steps will be placed. In a valley below was the Pit, where granite boulders were excavated, split, and wrapped in chains to be lifted above. At the Owl station, on the other side of the valley, was my favorite job. I watched through binoculars as each load was lifted out of the Pit by a grip hoist system using a steel cable running between the Owl and the Monster, then pulled in on a hand line of rope by about six people at the Monster. The three stations communicated by radio to coordinate the effort, and on our best days we lifted 21 and 22 loads from the Pit to the Monster.

Last night, our weekly barbecue was epic. Paul’s dad was there, and the volunteers from the project provided us one of the best dinners we’ve had since we’ve been here. I finished stuffing myself with about three times the size of a normal serving of hot cherry chocolate cobbler.

Fall is coming and life is most definitely good.