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January has arrived and with it, the Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust’s Community Hikes program has begun. The program has run for over ten years now, taking hundreds and hundreds of participants out in the Maine mountain landscape. If you haven’t come along and want to join, check out the trips posted at the link above. And if you have already, we look forward to seeing you again!

This trip was kind of a warm up hike for the winter session. Maine’s winters have been challenging for the hikes program – they need enough snow for snowshoes and less of icy conditions – but this year has been cold. For the hike up to Table Rock, we needed traction aids but not snowshoes. We had five participants who heading up in temperatures around 0F which is fairly typical for our trips. There was bright sunshine and as we ascended up the flank of West Baldpate Mountain, we warmed with rising sun. The Table Rock Trail is an official A.T. side trail and is popular at all times of the year, but we only saw two other smaller groups on the trail today. We reached the end at lunchtime and were greeted with the massive flank of Old Speck Mountain, the highest peak in the Mahoosuc Range, just across Grafton Notch.

The wind began to pick up and the day was proving to be colder than forecast, especially with little sunlight in the valleys. The group quickly finished lunch and descended. A great 4 hour day, with more hikes ahead for the season.