The Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust had another great hike with the Ladies Adventure Club this past Saturday up to Table Rock in Grafton Notch.  LAC is a group that gets members out in all areas of Maine: kayaking on the coast, hiking the A.T., fat tire biking, and tons of other great stuff.  Like the Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust, LAC lowers some of the barriers to participation in Maine’s outdoors by organizing peers and pooling resource.  This was our second hike with LAC and hopefully we can lead them again!

It was another cold morning but fortunately we were able to get in this, our second hike of the winter, after having to postpone our first two due to the cold temperatures.  It was about 5 degrees when we started out on snowshoes – not terrible but still pretty chilly, and soon enough various items of gear were tested by the wind and cold.  Feet were cold, fingers were getting numb, faces stopped feeling stuff.  The forest cover grew thicker pretty quickly and after about twenty minutes everybody was starting to warm up nicely.  Once we headed over to Table Rock on the side trail (the upper, blue-blazed official A.T. side trail, not the orange-blazed rocky one) the trail conditions deteriorated.  Damage from The Storm in the fall left us groping for the next blue blaze, despite being within sight of Table Rock.  After about 15 minutes we found the route, but then faced very icy conditions on the last steep grade up the rock with rungs.  We eventually made it by sticking together and helping each other out.

We ate lunch pretty quickly due to windy conditions on Table Rock, and the ice was dangerous near the edge.  We descended pretty quickly, taking care on the ice, and made it back to the parking lot by 2pm.

This weekend is the Great Maine Outdoor Weekend and we’re heading up Old Speck!  Join us by signing up here.