September 2, 2007
Darcy and Peirce were headed back to the Knife Edge today. I was tempted to go, but figured I better hit the two mountains that I missed the other day when the rain drove me back. Today, I will climb two more mountains that are on the New England 100 Highest list, Mount Coe and South Brother. Mike and Susan have joined me. Today, we would have lots of views of Doubletop Mountain. Here's the view from the parking lot.
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Like three days before, I found myself at the Marston Trailhead.
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Susan led a steady pace up to the Coe Junction.
The other day I took a left here. Today we would take a right.
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We crossed a stream with the clearest water I'd ever seen.
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Taking our first break
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We're starting to get up there.
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Time to keep moving.
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The trail follows a slide. Both Mike and Susan had done these peaks before. Mike suggested going up the slide rather than down it later today. It was good advice which we followed.
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This slide just keeps going up.
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Wow!
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We reached the 3,795 foot summit of Mount Coe.
This was my 73rd peak on the New England 100 highest list.
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Mike and Susan on the summit.
Mike and Susan are both great to hike with. Mike's an AMC hike leader and brings comic relief to any situation. Susan has been hiking with Ed for years. In fact, they finished their winter 4000 footers together. Ed continued to hike. Although Susan still occasionally hikes, she now does a lot of biking.
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Looking over to South Brother on the left and North Brother on the right.
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I told you we would be looking at Doubletop all day.
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This is one of the ridges that leads up to Katahdin.
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Coming down from Mount Coe
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In the col between Coe and South Brother
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Mike warned me that the last 3/10ths were definitely a Maine 3/10ths.
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South Brother didn't go down without a fight.
It was quite a scramble to the top.
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We reached the 3,970 foot summit of South Brother, just 30 feet shy of being a 4,000 footer. It makes the New England Hundred Highest list. This makes 74.
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I wasn't satisfied with the sign marking the summit and climbed to the highest point on a boulder.
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Not to be outdone, Mike followed me.
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Looking back to Mount Coe
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There's North Brother.
We won't be hitting North Brother today. Bob, another hiker camping with us, hiked a similar hike today but also included North Brother, finishing his New England 4000 footers. Congratulations Bob!
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Looking across the Klondike to Baxter Peak and the Knife Edge
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One last look toward Doubletop. Mike says the hike over Doubletop is great.
I'll definitely give that a try next year.
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We made the steep climb down South Brother and then over to the Marston Trail. As we were heading down we stopped at a lookout and met two other hikers. They were sitting down and eating Twizzlers.
"You know what would be really good right now!" said Mike. "A Twizzler."
The woman began searching through her bag.
"No, I'm just kidding." said Mike.
He played the same trick on a hiker back on Mount Coe only referring to the man's salomi sandwich.
We continued down the trail and stopped at the unnamed pond.
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I pulled out an orange and began to peel it. The other two hikers caught up to us. The woman passed us mumbling, "You know what would be really good right now, an orange."
We all laughed.
"She's caught on to you, Mike" I said.
Mike got his second wind going down the mountain, finishing a couple minutes ahead of us.
I saw him in the parking lot and joked, "You missed the bear and two cubs."
"No, I was making way too much noise to keep any wildlife around."
We drove back to the campsite where we had one last campfire. Al shared his Canadian chocolate, but was up against Hershey's Great American Chocolate Bar as Peirce shared his smores.
We heard an animal in the brush. Several in the group had problems with mice getting into their vehicles and eating food. This was way too big to be a mouse. At first I thought it was one of us from the group going to the stream for water. It moved faster than any of us, even Darcy. Our guess was that it was a deer. Mike moved away from the edge of the woods just to be safe. The stars were brighter than I had ever seen them. We would all be leaving at different times early in the morning so we said our 'Good Byes'.
Special thanks to Ed for hosting a great time at Baxter and thanks to Darcy, Mike, Gary, Alberta, Dan, Bob, Peirce, Al, and Susan for being part of this trip.
Take care and God bless!
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