Apparently I haven’t had enough of winter. That could explain why I decided to clip on the skis last Saturday to celebrate the end of the season with a little outdoor adventure. I convinced a friend to join me by telling him my plan for our day.
The plan was to ski about a mile and a half into the Great Pond Mountain Land Trust property in Orland, turn around and ski out. Then, after that, we would climb Schoodic Mountain in the Donnell Pond District of the Maine Bureau of Public Land in Franklin and Sullivan. For Don Littlefield, a buddy from our days at Brewer High, it was the chance to climb the mountain that did it for him.
“I’ve never climbed that mountain,” he said on the phone the week before, “but, my brother built a house on Flanders Pond that had a great view of it. I’ve wanted to climb it ever since.” Well, that settled it. We had a plan with a reason. That was all it took for us to put it in play.
When we set out on skis from the North Gate on Bald Mountain Road, the sky was filled with gray bottomed clouds and scattered sunshine. We skied over a few up-and-downs on the freshly groomed trail, which is Valley Road, the road that cuts through the 4,300-acre land trust property. It was about 10 o’clock and it appeared we’d have the place to ourselves because ours was the only vehicle at the gate.
It was warmer than it had been in months, with the air temperature hovering around 35 degrees. There was about two feet of softening snow on the road and soon we came to an unusual set of tracks crossing our path. Don, a trapper in one of his past avocations, stopped to point out what the tracks revealed.
“It looks like a fisher,” he said. “You can see the length of his bounds over here.” I bent down to look at the fresh print. Every detail of the animal’s feet was pressed into the soft snow. “The track’s not very old, made last night or earlier this morning. If it was older than that, the sides would be rounded or collapsed into the track,” he explained. After studying the track we came across a few more prints: several snow shoe hare and a coyote purposefully following a small deer, among others.
We reached our destination, the Great Meadow, which offered a clear view of Great Pond Mountain rising above the landscape. By then, the clouds had streamed off to the east and the sky turned clear and blue. After stepping out of the skis, we found a rock for a seat and took a break. Snacking on granola bars and water fueled us up to ski back out.
We were about a half-mile from the gate on the way out before encountering anyone else. That’s when we met a couple on snowshoes with a dog, a mixed lab/collie/shepherd named Whitby. Stopping to talk to the man and woman we realized we had met before, minus the dog.
“We met you on Katahdin last year,” said Mike Shershow, from Belfast. His wife Soo joined in with, “The man we were with was 76 years old. We were going to turn back at the top of the Saddle Trail, and you convinced us to keep going.”
I remembered the incident and soon we were all filling in details from that day in July. It was like a reunion with old friends with rounds of jokes and laughs. They were skiing into the Wildlands, so we said goodbye, turned away and headed in our separate directions.
After all, Don and I had a mountain to climb.
We loaded up the skis, drove north to the Donnell Pond District and discovered that we’d be snowshoeing an extra mile down the unplowed road to the trail head, a little detail I hadn’t expected. Not in the least discouraged, the two of us started to pull out the snowshoes when three snowmobiles came down the road toward us.
The sledders stopped, shut off their machines, took off their helmets and a conversation ensued.
The man, seasonally a logger and a lobsterman, and his two sons had just come across Donnell Pond and wondered what we were doing. It was about 2:30 by then. We told them our plan and the man, whose name I didn’t get, said, “You guys have more energy than I do.”
After talking a while longer, he and his boys took off. Don and I struck off down the road on the snowmobile track, toward the trailhead.
The snowshoeing was gradually uphill in deep snow until we reached the base of the summit, then it grew steep for the last half a mile. Don and I pushed on to the wind-blown, bare ledges at the top. The sun, by then, was well on its way to the horizon. We stopped to take in the expansive winter view. Looking south, the entire profile of Mount Desert Island captured our attention. The snow covering the mountains of the island made them look much larger than their actual modest height.
There were a couple of guys with a black lab who arrived on top after we did. They waved as we started back down the mountain ahead of them. We descended the eastern slope, which was now in shadow, the way we came. The descent was done which much less effort than the climb and it made for a great end to a winter day.
Not every trip to the outdoors means adventure. Sometimes it’s just a fun time knocking around in the woods and mountains with a good friend. Adventure may be a part of it, but usually the best part of going out there is found in the simple act of getting outdoors, winter or not.
According to the calendar spring is around the corner, but this is Maine. I wouldn’t count on it until at least April.
bradviles@gwi.net
Brad Viles checks his map on the Great Meadow Trail in the Great Pond Mountain Wildlands in Orland.