Summer days in Evans Notch

Mother Nature smiled on us this past weekend with a stroke of good weather for our weekend backpacking jaunt near Evans Notch (which is on the Maine/NH border.) We were a little unsure of her intentions on the drive up on Friday night in a downpour. Because of our last trip (see our last post "The Rain in Maine") we felt undaunted by a hike up in the rain. Bring it! Luckily, we parked the car at Basin Pond off of Rte. 113, and as we were putting on the boots and the raingear, it slowed to a drizzle and stopped as we began hiking...SWEET! It was a pretty awesome trail, with good views and some really cool boulders. The picture above is after our 2 mile ascent (taken at about 8:00pm), with the clouds parting in the background. After we set up the tarptent at the Blue Brook shelter, the stars came out! This picture is of some squirrel trail nibble...messy dude, he was. We were really amazed at the purple and pink colors that were on the inside of the scales of these spruce cones. There were many, many other signs of wildlife on this trip. Lots of moose scat! (Sorry, no pictures...) Ben had hiked up on this ridge during the winter, and said that the scat was fresh and you could see where the moose had bedded down in the snow. He surmised that they hang out on the trails in the winter and then head for more remote locations in the summer. We didn't see any fresh moose poop on this trip, but maybe we can head back up there this coming winter to get a sighting! (The actual moose, not the poop!)

The alpine plants were all in a stage of flowering or fruiting. Above is Sheep Laurel, which has really small, dainty pink flowers. They really stand out because the plant likes to grow tall. We would see these along with blueberry that were in various stages of ripeness. The blueberries this year are really juicy and delicious from all of the rain!Lots of Alpine Cranberry with big juicy berries. We tried one, not so delicious. Maybe with a ton of sugar! This particular picture is of a bed of them...but a lot of times you see just a few plants with a berry or two hanging out in the cracks of rocks on the summits...it kind of amazes you how they can thrive in such an inhospitable place!

On Saturday, we awoke with the chickens. Correction: Ben always wakes with the chickens and then coaxes me out of the tent with breakfast...granola with raisins. Anything is delicious when you know you are probably going to burn a gazillion calories that day. It was a glorious morning, sun was shining...
The first real summit we got to that morning was Mt. Meader, a smaller mountain by our standards (2783') but with awesome views of the surrounding peaks. This view (above picture) is of South Baldface...see why they call it Baldface?

Zoomed in view...

The Royce Mountains in the background...

A side note: this trip will go down as the one where Andrea Forgot Everything...

I managed to forget a lot of important stuff while packing Thursday night...like COFFEE. I also forgot my gaiters, which would have been nice considering how wet the trails were. But this leads to a nice segue of our next picture, of Ben's fashionable new gaiters...

Why yes, those are giraffe print! Where can YOU get a pair of those? http://www.dirtygirlgaiters.com/

After being so jealous of Ben's all weekend, I order a pair of tiger striped ones! I can't wait until they come in!

I couldn't resist taking a pic of Ben in his "portable awning" as he likes to call it. These were taken during a snack break on top of Eagle Crag, right before our North Baldface (3600') summit push. (Ha ha...I don't know if I can call a 600 foot ascent a "summit push", but it sounds bad ass, doesn't it?)

From the summit of N. Baldface. You can see the shadows the big puffy clouds cast over the valley behind us. What a gorgeous day! After the rest of our 10 mile hike, we arrived at Spruce Brook Shelter. It was almost a race to get there, because we discovered that the 4 guys at the summit of N. Baldface were going there, along with another couple...and so we booked it down, passed the couple, and passed the 4 dudes. (There were only 2 tent platforms!) I was quite proud of myself, as I am not known for my speed (at least to those of hiking calibre like Benjamin.) I was going to get cow-print gaiters, but they don't make them...

Anyway, we got to the shelter first, passed right by it to go to the tent platforms, set up, had a drink, and then headed down to the Wild River for some trout fishin! (Being as I forgot my pole and NH fishing license, I got to watch...)

Ben and I both have sweet ultralite telescoping backpacking fishing rods made by Shakespeare. They are awesome! Yes, Ben carried worms with him just for this purpose! What a great night for fishing, as Ben caught 5, his legal limit. 2 Brook Trout and 3 Rainbow Trout!

Freshly gutted, they go in a sealtight, odor proof ziploc bag.

The scene of the slaughter...

His biggest victim, a nice-sized Rainbow.

YUM! Dinner! Ben the trout slayer in his glory...(you can also see the crooked tent platform in the background...ours was a little straighter, but not by much!)

We have a little titanium plate that we got to use to saute the trout over our alcohol stove...they were so delicious...just olive oil in the pan to prevent sticking. No salt, no lemon, nothing needed! Fresh trout have got to be the most delicious things on all of this beautiful, bountiful earth.

The next day we awoke to some sun, but throughout the morning it became foggy and overcast. We had a snack at Rim Junction and had to put all of our layers on, it was so cold! (shirt, long-sleeve shirt, fleece, rain jacket, and winter hat! )By the time we got back to the bottom of the basin, it was pretty warm. We came out of the trailhead to where we parked our car, right at a picnic area on the lake. We were so muddy and stinky, I dropped my pack and walked right into the lake, boots and all...much to the chagrin of the picnickers. What a great swim we had! It was a nice way to round out an amazing weekend...