Got Moose?

Well it has only been a month and 4 days since I got back from my high adventure trip to Maine. It was a lot of fun as 7 of us went up north to Maine to climb Mount Katahdin and do some white-water rafting on the Penobscot River.

The trip was incredible. I was very impressed with Katahdin after having been less than overwhelmed by some of the White Mountains. I am a Rocky Mountain native after all. The knife edge was very fun and the weather was perfect for my weekend in Maine. The trip started out a little rough as I had to give a group talk at work in the morning and that made me a little late for the rendevouz. Then, as we start driving on the freeway my car starts shaking because a tire is out of balance. The tire stemmed for a slow leak that I thought I would fix with "fix-a-flat". Long story short, don't use that stuff. We ended up stopping at a service station in South Lawrence and getting the tires rebalanced and rotated. Sum total of 75 minute delay.

But, we finally made it up there. We stayed at the New England Outdoor Center in Millinocket, ME which I highly recommend. The food was great and the price was very reasonable. On Friday we headed up to Baxter State Park to climb Katahdin. I really enjoyed the hike. Take a look at my Katahdin Album on Flickr to see pictures taken by Spencer and me. Some great views. I would go back and do it again tomorrow if it wasn't a 6 hour drive. The hike started out slowly with about a 2 mile hike along the river up to some cabins and a lake. Then it got interesting as we climbed straight up the face to get to the ridge. We ate lunch on the peak while enjoy perfect 65-70 degree weather and then headed out across the knife edge. A few reckless actions with our lives and then down the mountainside. All in all a success except for some minor knee pain coming down.

The next day I was gearing up for some white-water rafting. The Penobscot is one of the better rivers to run on the east coast and the rapids were pretty fun. We had two class V's and one class IV. I can say that I stayed in the boat, but that can't be said for everyone and I helped haul several people into our boat after they fell out of our boat or some of the other boats on the trip. The highlights were probably see Spencer surf the raft down several rapids and the whole crew surfing one of the rapids. It was a short trip, but it was a lot of fun. Next year perhaps we will go sea kayaking.

I should add one more note. Good thing I am not Senor Chappo as the border patrol set up a stop on I-95 and all cars had to go through it. Luckily my accent must be good because I wasn't asked to show ID.