On the AT - East B Hill Road to South Arm Road, Andover, ME

June 10, 2007 | Miles: 10.1
Start: East B Hill Road, Andover
End: South Arm Road
Danielle:
Bright and sunny, a bit humid
Aided once again by our friend Earl at the Cabin shuttling us from South Arm to the AT crossing on East B Hill Road, we were on our way by 9:15. The ascent to Surplus Pond was pretty mellow, and the woods were full of white and pink lady slippers, gold thread, bunchberry, blue bead lilies and Indian poke. A few trout lilies and trillium holding on too, but mostly their season is over. Anyway, as always, the spring woods are vsery pretty. At the pond, which is accessible by a dirt road, a large group had set up camp right on the trail, although friendly. From there we climbed up Wyman Mountain, wandering through pine forest and taking in a few nice views along the way. There were a few pesky blowdowns after the summit on our descent to Hall Mountain Lean-to, where we stopped to have our lunch, and then the trail went down, down, down into Sawyer Notch. Pesky notches! Sawyer Brook was running high, but we managed to get across without getting too wet! Thank goodness for goretex ;-) Then up, up, up Moody Mountain, with numerous ladders and scrambles along the way. We were surprised to see some moose droppings on the way up. It seems moose will go anywhere, even if very steep! The climb seemed to go on forever, but eventually we hit the high point with a nice scenic vista. We didn’t stay long as the long grass and brambles had irritated my legs and I was looking forward to getting down to Black Brook to wash off my legs… Silly sensitive skin! Luckily, the descent was much gentler and soon enough we were at the brook. As we pondered whether we could get across without getting our feet wet, a kingfisher flew by. Neat! Eventually we decided to just wade on through and I had fun splashing around in the water. It felt good on a warm day! All in all, a good 6-hour hike, and another 10 miles done ;-)

Ryan:
Earl said it best: “A great day to be out in the woods.” That pretty much sums it up. Another shuttle from Earl from the Cabin in Andover, and we were on our way. 6 miles of mellow climbing to Hall Mtn. Lean-to, then 4 miles of 1400 feet down, 1000 feet up and another 1000 feet down. Kinda hard, but not impossible. Not much to report from the day other than another beautiful section of Maine.