I know you should be brave and start cold, but I’m always cold. I should have taken off this fleece before the ascent. That’s dramatic, I can wait for the summit. Should I wait for a snack at the lookout or have one right away? I’m getting hungry. Now back uphill I guess, or is that just a PUD (pointless up and down)? Another PUD? When will it start to go up again? I forget how many kilometers we had to the next viewpoint. If I were working, it would probably be almost noon by now. I wish I could exercise as much as I do on a daily basis. It’s crazy how quickly this daily hike became a habit. It would be so strange to be in the real world right now. I wonder how hot it is in Fredericton right now. Can I put my foot there? It’s a bit damp, but it doesn’t feel slippery. I think that feels like a good crimp hold. But I think my backpack would throw me off balance. How is the conversion from USD to CAD again? Mental arithmetic is difficult to track down. Is food cheaper in America than in Canada? I wonder if it’s just more expensive in small towns. Did I pack teriyaki or alfredo noodles for dinner tonight? I can’t believe the Knorr pages were $2.50 on this refill. Isn’t it about 20% of hikers who actually complete this trail? Let’s get through Maine first, Jana. I don’t even want to think about that now. I wonder how I would feel if I had to leave the lane sooner. Oh watch out, Jana, the pole just slipped off. Don’t put your trekking pole through my bloody Achilles tendons. How close behind me is the next hiker? Oh damn right there. What if it slips? I hope this pole doesn’t stab me if I fall. Test the ground before sticking your pole there. Is that the right way to hold the poles on a descent? I feel the wrist hurts less when you press on the top. I feel like an old lady hiking down the mountain. Why do we have to go so far down before we go back up? I wish the mountains were closer together so we didn’t have to do that. Is this mountain higher than this one? It kind of looks a bit bigger. It looks like it’s going to go on forever. For your viewing pleasure, these thoughts are presented below. The mountains looked peaceful until I realized I had to walk through it all.Īs I trekked through this mountain range, I tried to tune into my inner dialogue and mentally catalog the kinds of thoughts rolling through my brain. For someone with an engineering degree, I’m anything but technical when it comes to hiking.įor that reason I was surprised and interested to learn that from the top of Little Bigelow Mountain you can follow the Appalachian Trail down to Safford Notch and up to Bigelow Avery Peak and down and back up to Bigelow West Peak. Instead, I’m more of a “wow that’s beautiful”, “that’s so good for the soul”, “mother nature really easy DID this”, “I enjoy this so much” type of person. Although I can definitely be seen checking FarOut to answer the burning question: are we there yet? Others are very technical, competitive and know the exact ascent, descent, approximate ascent and height of each mountain. Other hikers are great at cardinal points and can point to mountain ranges on the horizon and tell you what’s what as far as the eye can see. Some hikers are really great at reciting the history of a particular area, they may tell you how the mountains got their name or their cultural or indigenous importance in the area. It’s like a little excitement before moving on towards southern Maine and New Hampshire. The Appalachian Trail from Caratunk to Stratton begins to become more mountainous.