[at-l] What'cha been up to?

[Snodrog5 at aol.com (Snodrog5@aol.com)]

Hiyas,
 Thanks very much for the 300 emails. And here I thought I'd have nuttin to 
do after returning from the Bigelows.
 Highlights: Getting a hug from Alice the caretaker at Horns Pond for toting 
up a bag of toss-in-the privy stuff that was down at the Trailhead under a 
tarp. Hearing raves about Tom at the Stratton Motel. Counting toads. Watching the 
fish jump at Horns. Waking to Veery and Wood Thrush song, napping to chicada 
zinging, falling asleep to the wind in the treetops. Watching a Pine Marten 
mark a mid-trail boulder. The North Horn, the best .2 blue blaze in Maine. 
Meeting really nice people, like sobos Southpaw, Just Jim, and CheeseStick, and 
injured in '04 HomeBoy who has healed up fine and was back heading North. 
Watching two Peregrine Falcons do acrobatics between Avery and Bigelow, racing back 
and forth above the col, chattering away at each other. Eating blueberries 
while watching a moose watch me. Marveling at the MATC trailwork on the Horns Pond 
and Firewarden's Trails. History-blazing on the old timey Safford Brook 
trail. Canoeing a bit on the Chain of Ponds, hundreds of years after several 
members of my family went North with Arnold in bateaux to Quebec, later hiking along 
Flagstaff Lake where only one ancestor returned South from Canada.
 Amusing moment: hearing that the Plum Creek development of Moosehead might 
hinge on the disposal of septic waste. There's poetry there. Somewhere.

Teej