Re[2]: [at-l] HAP-pyyy NEW Yearrrrrrrr!!!

[Bob C." <ellen@clinic.net (Bob C.)]

>"...New Years on Springer sounds great..but being 2000 miles or so away tends
>to squelch that idea. :-)"

My first "adult" winter backpack (I had gone out a few times as a teenager many
years earlier) was on the slopes of Katahdin, New Years 1970. I hiked in to
Katahdin Stream from Abol Bridge on December 31 with a group from the Sierra
Club.

 The plan had been to stay in one of the Baxter Park bunk houses, but we were
 probably the first group to access the park from the AT in winter and the
 rangers apparently assumed when we bypassed the main gate we had given up our
 walk. Anyway the bunk house was padlocked, so we camped in one of the leantos.
 The temperature only dropped to minus 30 that night, making breakfast a bit
 brisk.

 New Year's Day we hiked part way up Katahdin, but retreated in the deep snow
 and climbed the Owl instead. The Owl is the mountain you see on the left when
 hiking the AT (Hunt Trail) to Baxter Peak.

  That night one of our party came down with flu symptoms and had to be rescued
  by a snowmobiler, a story I've told before, so I won't repeat it, though it
  greatly embarrassed the Sierra Club, who had joined in lawsuits in a failed
  attempt to keep the machines out of what Gov. Baxter dreamed would be a
  "forever wild" park.

  Somehow the details of most of my New Year celebrations have faded from
  memory, but that one remains vivid.

  Weary