On the AT - Grafton Notch to East B Hill Road, Andover, ME

June 24, 2007 | Miles: 10.3
Start: Rt. 26, Grafton Notch
End: East B Hill Road, Andover
Danielle:
A gorgeous day to be out! The air was crisp, the sky was blue and there was a nice cool breeze to keep away the bugs. Perfect! We had done the climb up and over the Baldpates before, but it was long ago, and we hadn’t remembered it being such a nice hike! The section from the West Baldpate summit down into the col where beautiful mountain laurel was blooming, as well as this cool grass with little puff ball tops blowing in the wind, and then back up to East Baldpate was gorgeous but breezy! The descent off East was steep, and we stopped in the notch for lunch, then headed up and over Surplus Mountain and wandered down through the woods on the other side to the road… the woods were nice and green with wood sorrel, ladyslippers, blue bead lilies, star flowers, Canada mayflower along the trail. It was a good 5-hour hike, and we enjoyed it!

Ryan:
Today rocked. We felt great. The trail was nice. Most of all the weather was perfect and the views were amazing. The Baldpates are one of the most beautiful stretches we’ve hiked yet. It was too bad we were only out for the day. A little more than ten miles in about five hours. Good stuff. And our extremely random and haphazard section hike rolls on.