Cross Country Skiing at the AMC Medawisla Lodge

Amy organized a trip for us to Maine this past weekend to visit the Appalachian Mountain Club's "Medawisla" hut to go cross-country skiing. Here is a short account.

We had originally planned on making this trip back at the end of January, but then realized when the week rolled around that we would have had to be driving in the middle of a huge nor'easter snow storm. Amy got on the phone and was somehow able to move our reservation to the next month, very glad about that (really no way we could have driven that day).

Instead of a blizzard, on the day we were due to depart we were having a major warm spell (60+ degrees, with lots of rain the day before), so much so that I wondered whether there would be any snow at all when we arrived in Maine.  Thankfully, the temps ratcheted down the whole way, and it was about 15 when we finally pulled in to the hut parking lot.

The drive up from Cambridge to Greeneville ME (the nearest town) is about a 6 hour deal, so it is hard to squeeze it in on the side, you need to just give the day over to travel. 

We had thought about stopping in Portland ME for lunch, since they have interesting food there, but that would have meant leaving much later in the day, so instead we decided to stop in Freeport and grab a sandwich there. Driving conditions were good all the way to Greeneville, where we got off the main roads and continued on the back roads all the way out to the hut. There were a few dicey spots, but in general we had no real trouble.

The main Medawisla lodge is gleaming and new (it was completely rebuilt in 2017), with solar panels and such. The cabin Amy picked out for us was nice too-- couple of smallish bedrooms and then a common area with a nice Jotul wood stove. The stove seemed very overpowered considering the size of the cabin; even a small amount of wood in it heated the place up to the point where you had to crack windows open.

Our cabin:

The food at AMC huts is nearly always good, and it was no exception at this place-- the one downer was that because of COVID the rule was that you had to pick up your food in the lodge, then load it into an insulated bag and bring it back to your cabin to eat there. That was too bad; I've always found it fun to meet the other hut visitors while setting and eating "family style".

After dinner we sat and read our books; Medawisla is definitely a no-TV no-internet detach-from-everything type place. I also took the opportunity to get out the skis and work on them a bit (getting rid of old ski wax, etc). My ski equipment is very shaky these days-- I thought seriously about trying to replace it this past winter, but with the COVID-related supply shortages it was very difficult for me to find places that were stocking skis that I actually wanted.

I settled instead for buying some new bindings (which I was able to install myself) and a new pair of boots.  The only boots I could find that looked workable were a good deal heavier than I would have liked, but I felt as though there was on way I could keep the old boots going (big holes in the toe area, kept together with duct tape).

On Saturday we got up on the early side (6:30 ish) and made tea + coffee in the cabin, then headed over to the main lodge to collect our breakfast at 8am. We were ready to hit the trail by around 8:30, and the weather was cold (11 or 12F) but not unbearable, so we made our way out.

Sunrise:

On the trail:

We opted for the so-called "Lake Circuit" trail, which makes a big loop around "Second Roach Pond" (that's the name of the lake that the hut is on) and runs for about 10 miles. I was a little nervous about this route since there isn't any practical way to cut it short once you've started it, but we decided to go ahead anyhow.

The ski conditions were fine, in fact much better than my expectations-- I had been worried that we would have to contend with patches of ice where it had melted and refrozen, but it was really mostly drifted/packed snow with a dusting of powdery stuff on top, so very skiable indeed.  The trail was virtually empty -- we only saw one other couple on the way (not until mile 7 or so). There were snowshoe tracks for the first three or four miles along the on the north side of the lake, then they petered out, leaving us skiing for miles without even seeing any other tracks at all.

Lots of moose tracks however, they were hard to miss. The depth of the snow and the weight of the critter meant that they left huge post-hold sized hoof-prints, and we saw lots of moose "scat" as well. Whatever moose it was looks like he decided he liked walking along the ski trail, since the tracks would criss-crossed the trail all over the place, sometimes running right down the middle.

Trees were a mix of evergreen and deciduous, mostly on the smaller side (the place has the look of land that has been logged recently). Weather warmed up a bit as we went along, but still quite cold (maybe around 15).

At mile 6.2 the trail turns south and then heads out onto the frozen lake, cutting off the very eastern tip of Roach Pond. That section was pretty hair-raising, since it was nothing but ice (no snow at all), and we were facing a stiff headwind.  The usual methods of propelling yourself (kick and glide) didn't work at all, so we had to just hold our feet rigid and push along with the poles, lots of work.  We stopped for lunch just after reaching the other side.

We didn't linger for very long eating lunch, but I could feel myself cooling off fast while we were eating, so I was pretty eager to get back on the trail before getting completely frozen (at that point my fingers were definitely unhappy).

This was the point where we encountered another small "family group": mom and dad and two small kids. The smallest kid was in a sort of "sled stroller" thing with skids and a couple of long handles coming out the front; the dad was holding the handles and pulling the sled forward (no poles, he was "skate" skiing). Just behind the sled was the older kid (who was holding on too) and then mom was bringing up the rear. Impressive setup, I bet the dad was having to work hard.

A few miles left to the lodge:

We finished our tour a bit before 2, so it took us maybe 4.5 or 5 hours, so a substantial outing.

Whew, made it -- time to start the fire again.

Dinner was meat loaf and potatoes (very "stick to your ribs" stuff); I think I overdid it a bit, had too much to eat.  While standing in line in the main lodge waiting to collect our meals both Amy and I were surprised at the number of little kids -- not just grade schoolers but babies and toddlers (the under 3 set). I was puzzled that folks would want to bring their little ones to a place like this, but they were definitely in evidence. Maybe the adults take turns watching the babies and then going out to ski when their shift is over?

Lots more reading Saturday night; we were plowing through books at a steady clip. I think I have enough to last me (especially given that I picked up one of Amy's cast-offs). 

Sunday: slightly easier time sleeping last night than the previous one. I did a sort of strip-tease in reverse: started out with just a sheet, then added in an unzipped sleeping bag (as a blanket) on top, and then much later when it really cooled off I got under the heavy duvet. That worked pretty well. 

It was below zero when we got up around 6:15ish, super cold... after looking at the thermometer we decided to maybe make a slightly later start.  I had to hassle over getting the fire started again this morning (it had gone out); the logs I grabbed from the wood pile turned out to be not completely dry. I did get it going eventually however. 

Breakfast at 8, which turned out to be a perfectly delightful Eggs Florentine (perfectly cooked), along with hash browns, fruit, and yogurt. Temp still zero when we got the food back from the main lodge, so we just had another lengthy reading session after breakfast while waiting for it to warm up.

Around 11 it had finally warmed up into the teens, so we ventured out-- Amy opted for hiking and I strapped on my skis and went out to explore some of the trails to the south and east of the lodge ("Trout Mountain"). Photos:

Unlike the paths from yesterday these were almost all flawlessly groomed; I felt as though I was at a downhill ski resort on one of those "first run of the day" descents.   On one section of the trail I got a peek through the trees of Mt Katahdin to the north, that was kind of cool (I think it is only 30 or 40 miles away).

Back at the lodge I gobbled my lunch down (another hummus and veggie sandwich) and then had a very nice half hour nap (yay). My feet felt a bit beat up from my new boots, bunch of sore spots and a couple of blisters, so I was just as glad to call it quits at that point. 

We had another long set of reading sessions, and I finished off a couple of books. My selections this time: "Station Eleven" by Emily St. John Mandel,  and "Axiom's End" by Lindsay Ellis, both entertaining reads. 

Another early night (we were both tired), and then after breakfast we hit the road back to civilization. On the trip back we finished off our book on tape, "One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter" by Scaachi Koul, an entertaining memoir-ish book by a woman who is the daughter of Kashmiri immigrants living in Canada. Very snarky and insightful. 

Trip to Acadia

This past week Amy and I drove up to visit Acadia National Park. This trip was with the kids and also Joanie and Carey.

We set out around 9ish on Saturday morning, did a caravan along up 95 and then 195 and stopped a bit after Portland for much at Days Crab Meat and Lobster for lunch. Good food; the sandwiches were extremely authentic (lobster roll, crab roll) but a bit on the small side; we wound up ordering a second round after the first round had been consumed. Reed did a bunch of the driving on the way up, also Ethan.

The rental place that Amy picked out is not far from Echo Lake, in the western section of Mount Desert Island, which is a bit quieter and more residential. The street that we are on has the remains of an old stone quarry, so there are big chunks of cut stone sitting around on the sides of the road and visible through the underbrush.

The house is terrific; as usual Amy picked out a nice one. The kitchen is well equipped and has nice stove and work area; there is a deck with a gas grill, large washer and dryer, etc. A good selection overall.

There is a small pond out in the front of the house (assume it used to be a quarry pit), but not really all that swimmable (too reedy/weedy for my tastes), but the kids were not to be deterred; they splashed around in it for a bit and Ethan swam.

Meanwhile the rest of of us walked over to locate a cut-over path off the quarry road that led to the Acadia Mountain trail. We did eventually manage to locate it and did a short hike up towards the mountain, but came back after around a half hour so as to have dinner.

Amy prepared the meal: pork stew (made previously and brought up in the car), greens, and rice.

Sunday we decided to start off with a mostly local hike: we drove over to explore Beech Mountain. Nice weather: cool, sunny, a few floating clouds. A few photos from the way up:

At the top of the mountain we were in luck: there was a park service ranger there to open up the old fire tower. We got a chance to walk up to the very top, chat with the ranger, and take in the view.

She told us that this particular fire tower was active up until the 1970s, at which point other more sophisticated technologies took over. In the center of the top floor of the fire tower was an Osborne Fire Finder, fun to look at.

On the way back down we split up into two groups; Carey and Joanie did a somewhat more direct downhill, and Amy + kids + I did a longer loop to the south. Drove home for lunch after that.

In the afternoon we decided to head over to Echo Lake for a swim. That was actually a lot of fun -- water was cool but not freezing, and there was a nice sandy beach. First time I can recall ever swimming inside a national park...

For dinner we did grilled stuff: sausages, chicken, eggplants, leeks, tomatoes, and mushrooms, and I had made a batch of tabouleh earlier that morning (made especially yummy with fresh cherry tomatoes from Dad and Joanie's garden).

On Monday morning we decided to have a kayak/canoe session, so we headed over to a rental place that Amy had found up at the north end of Long Pond. We rented a canoe and four single kayaks. A slightly weird rental place in that the boats are located across the main road from the water, so after you rent your equipment you have to carry/truck it down to the dock yourself. No matter, we were fairly quickly on our way.

Long Pond is a nice big lake, somewhat more developed in the northern half and less so down in the south. There are houses along the water, but they are not too close together, and there is still a lot of vegetation, so it still feels like a pond in the countryside. I started out in the canoe with Joanie, and everyone else took kayaks. Predictably, the younger generation zoomed off on their own right from the start-- we didn't see much of them until later. About halfway down the lake I switched places with my dad.

Photos:

Occasionally we would see patches of these interesting multi-colored reeds -- don't recall seeing them before:

Lots of cedar trees on the lake's edge:

We headed back afterward and had lunch around noon at the house.

Amy and I zoomed off for a bike ride a little later in the afternoon. We started at the Parkman Mountain parking area and then rode around on the carriage trails for an hour or so. That section of the park has a fair amount of ups and downs, so we got some good exercise. Photos:

We had a bit more down time at the house after then, and then we split up into a bunch of groups to focus on our various pursuits: Amy drove down to the south part of the island to hike, then my dad and Joanie dropped off the kids and me at Echo Lake for swimming and also went to find a hiking spot.

Interesting mix of people at Echo Lake -- lots of Americans, but I also heard French, German, and Russian. We had a nice long swim, then eventually got collected again by Amy.

Joanie and Carey cooked dinner (meatballs, greens, and pasta with home-made pesto). After dinner we had a spirited game of cards, "King" (this is the game that Andrew taught us after learning it from his Brazilian friends).

Tuesday was our sailing day. We drove in to South Harbor and had breakfast at the Common Good Soup Kitchen. They have an interesting setup -- in the summer time they run a breakfast cafe type operation where you are served a basic breakfast (oatmeal, popovers, coffee) and then all of the proceeds are donated to the soup kitchen to run charity programs during the off season. Popovers were quite good, I had a couple:

After that we drove down to the docks and found the offices of "Sail Acadia", where Amy had arranged for us to go on a sailing cruise for the morning. The boat in question was "Alice" a 30-something food Friendship Sloop. Built in the late 1880's 1890s, originally as a working boat (for lobster men), it's now working touring people around the harbor area. Carl, the captain, was a nice guy and very knowledgeable about the area.

Not huge amounts of wind at first, but the breeze did eventually pick up and give us enough oomph to make our way around the harbor, over to Little Cranberry island, back around Sutton Island, and back to the dock. Photos:

Hoisting the sail:

Under way:

An enormous boat coming past us up from Seal Cove -- Carl told us that it belonged to the person who owns the H.E.B. grocery chain in Texas of all places. My dad tells me that this particular mast/sail setup is a "ketch".

Carl also pointed out a collection of boats moored up together, these were so-called "International One Design" racing boats (there was a race here this past summer, as well).

Lunch after the sailing expedition at "Eat a Pita", which was good (sandwiches heavy on the vegetables). After that we headed home, then a bit before three we decided to head back for another bout of hiking and biking. This time around the kids and my dad were on bikes, and Joanie + Amy + I headed out on foot. The plan was for the hikers to do a circular hike around Eagle Lake, and for the bikers to just zoom around on the carriage roads, eventually meeting back up at the parking lot.  This seemed to work well for the first half of the walk or so, but then at the south side of the lake the trail degenerated completely, leaving us clambering over big stones and boulders the entire way (very annoying). Photo:

This set the timetable back quite a bit for the hikers, so the contingent on bikes had to wait around for quite a bit in the parking lot unfortunately. We did eventually get connected back up around 5:45, then zoomed back to the house, got cleaned up, and headed off to dinner.

The restaurant was "Xanthus", part of the Claremont Hotel. Food was quite good; we all ordered fish (salmon, halibut, swordfish) and I had a salad with grilled octopus for an appetizer, very tasty indeed.  Wait staff at the restaurant leaned heavily towards young people from overseas (probably on H2B visas), reminded me a lot of our trip to Yellowstone a few years back.

Wednesday: cloudy and overcast, but the forecast didn't call for rain, so we decided to have another hiking day. Younger generation had been grumbling about all of the early starts, so we got going a good deal later this time, maybe around 10:10 or so. We decided to drive to the Sand Beach parking lot on the east side of the island and try out the hiking over there. We packed sandwiches for lunch and piled into the cars.

After the previous day's boulder-filled extravaganza Joanie decided that she wanted something that was a bit more on the level, so she announced that she would be doing the Ocean Path trail-- runs along the coast, no clambering required.  We all walked the first part of the trail together... view from Ocean Path:

At the Gorham Mtn trail the rest of the gang peeled off and headed up into the hills. Signs from the trail:

The Gorham trail was nice -- up onto a saddle, then basically followed the ridge line to the north, with nice views to the east and south. We eventually bumped into "The Beehive", a sort of dome-shaped rocky outcropping, so the kids went off to hike that while Amy and I hiked up to "The Bowl". Carey came with us that far, then headed back down to connect up with Joanie again.

Here we are at the Bowl, where we stopped for lunch (and were eventually joined by the kids).  The water looked swimmable, if you had the right attire (and in fact there was a family with kids that arrived shortly after we did, and they hopped right in).

At that point Amy headed back down towards the Sand Beach lot, while the kids and I headed north again on the trail to Champlain Mountain. View back down looking at the Bowl from the trail:

Atop Champlain Mountain:

At that point the kids decided that they wanted to try going down the so-called "Precipice Trail" (which looked insanely steep to me) to the east, so we separated up again; I headed north to descend on the ridge trail, then cut over to the so-called "Orange and Black" trail. View of Bar Harbor to the north:

At that point it was a bit of a muddle: I got to the Precipice trail head and could not find the kids, so I assumed that they had arrived there before me (turns out that I was ahead of them). I got on the bus (there is a free shuttle) back down to Sand Beach, where I met up again with Amy. The kids eventually straggled in. Photo of Sand Beach:

We finally all met in the parking lot, then it was back home to showers, laundry, and a dinner of broccoli and takeout pizza (yum).

On Thursday Amy and I zoomed off shortly after breakfast and went for a bike ride -- we did the "Around the Mountain" loop trail, which is an especially nice route, since there is a section of the trail that is very high up (great views to the north and west). Photos:

Later that day we headed out on a group hike. Starting from the Lower Hadlock Pond parking lot, we hiked northeast -- Amy/Carey/Joanie on one of the carriage roads, and the kids and I took one of the hiking trails. We opted for the "hike over the top of everything" strategy, picking our trails to take us over the summits of Parkman mtn, Gilmore peak, and then finally Sargent mtn -- lovely day for a hike. Photos:

On our way up:

Summit of Parkman mountain, first of three:

Reed taking in the view:

View to the south:

Gilmore peak:

... and up to the top of Sargent mountain:

Panorama shot looking east up to the summit of Sargent:

I had to hustle a bit to keep up with the kids, but thankfully I didn't get completely left in the dust. We did run a bit short on water -- it was a good deal warmer than I had expected, so we were all pretty thirsty by the time we made it back to rendezvous at the car.

On Friday we decided to be a little less organized, more time for lolling around the house.  One small hike in the morning-- my dad and I hiked Acadia mountain (not far from our house). Can't quite recall what Amy and Joanie were doing, I believe one of the trails closer to the water. Photos:

In the early afternoon we decided we would wait for low tide and make our way over to Bar Island, which is just north of Bar Harbor. There is a sort of land bridge that is exposed only at low tide, kind of fun. Bar Island itself is not really all that interesting, you can mainly hike around and get views back to the south of Bar Harbor. We could see a big cruise ship docked off to the side-- as would be expected, the Bar Harborians have a sort of love-hate relationship with the big boats, but they do seem to turn up periodically. Photos:

Another thing we did that afternoon was to explore some of the other parts of the old stone quarry near our house.  Some of the old/rusting machines that they had lying around were pretty interesting, including an old steam engine and an enormous decomposing tractor/lift/engine thing. From the dates and writing it looked as thought it had been active around the turn of the century (1900). Some parts looking very sophisticated, others oddly primitive (wooden wheels, for example). Photos:

We had a comprehensive "clean out the leftovers" dinner that evening, as would be expected.

Sat was a travel day -- we made the long drive back down, traffic not too horrendous. We had a very nice stopover in Portsmouth to visit with my cousin Sam and his wife Nikki, and with their daughter Charlie, who is a lot of fun (she has no shyness about interacting with strange adult relatives as far as I could tell). 

All in all, a fine trip -- loads of exercise and outdoor activity, and with good weather for just about the entire time.