Small Ticks Frightened the Giant Max
January 17, 2010
As this trip was scheduled in the middle of the long weekend, I had only Feng, Max, Chung Kwong, Rose, John and Moon on the field. I led the same trip last year with only 3 other hikers. That trip was beautiful because the whole area was covered with deep snow. It was also painful for Rose because we did extra mile due to my mistake. Too sad that the trail was 40% cleaned today. We had no big challenge until the last mile when the ice storm started.
We started at 9:45am from Blue Trail climbing Conklin Mountain. There were hard snow on the trail but not slippery. We moved slowly uphill under very cloudy weather. The forecast said rain or snow shower at 1 pm. We switched to Yellow Trail which was basically flat. Moon and Rose took pictures with the same fallen branches and stone crack which they did last year. There were little snow on the trail and Moon pointed out those little dots on the snow was ticks. Max didn’t believe until he bent down to investigate. His eyes opened wide after knowing we were surely surrounded by trillions of ticks. He was so eager to ask on prevention of bringing home the ticks. I told him I sprayed before hiking. I usually put my hiking stuff in the garage and washed the clothes separately. Ticks could not survive under high temperature. No matter what I said, I just didn’t see him sat down for the whole day, even during our half hour lunch time.
We reached the junction of 2 Yellow Trails but one indicated with a line in black. I decided to take the striped Yellow because we could be closer to the parking lot in case bad weather kicked in earlier. We reached a ski trail which was 90% cleaned from snow. When the ski trail brought us to a junction, Rose remembered where she sat for lunch last year. We switched to another ski trail and found T-MI Red Trail in 5 minutes. We would follow Red Trail all the way to Seven Lakes Drive. There were more snow and slopes on T-MI so it made the trip more interesting. Moon recognized a rock liked a rolling chair so most people took turn to sit on the dragon seat. When we were at a spot with a lot of clean rocks and less wind, I decided to stop for lunch. Feng ran back from the hill top after experienced the coldness from strong wind. John prepared healthy food and served us his colorful pepper dessert.
We never saw the sun for the entire day so likely rain or snow would start soon. We continued on Red Trail after lunch. I was scared by hearing someone screaming at the back. Luckily, it was only 2 trail runners. There was a special human construction off the trail which attracted our curiosity. After 10 minutes investigation, we guessed it was an abandoned furnace which was built to burn garbage or branches in the mountain. We were lucky that we didn’t find any clues of crime. I led the group kept going on the unmarked until we hit the Blue Trail. I was here intended to locate the Monitor Rock which was indicated on the map. We found a Black Trail led us to a giant rock. Chung Kwong and Rose were brave enough to climb up the rock but disappointedly found nothing special. I led the group entered the Blue Trail and connected back to T-MI in 15 minutes. At the spot closed to the Red Trail, we found a big rock with an open mouth. Rose and Chung Kwong tried to enter the mouth to see what was inside. John took a lot of picture of the sceneries and other hikers because he said he was unable to hike every weekend.
The weather turned bad at 1:30 pm. Ice shower started at this moment but the ice particles were very fine. We were still about 1.5 miles from the parking lot. When we came across a stream, John and Rose were attracted by a special ice formation at a fallen trunk. Feng, Max, Chung Kwong and Moon were busy shooting to other huge ice formations at the dam. Max finally took out his camera because he recognized an ice formation that liked a tiger. We took group picture in front of the dam. After we climbed the last slope and saw the huge frozen Lake Sebago, we could not stop going in. We were interrupted by a ranger at a car so we had to leave. The wind turned stronger that made it an ice storm now. Our faces were painful because we were liked hit by needles. We passed through a picnic area which equipped with BBQ grills. It would be a perfect location for BBQ in the summer if they installed restroom facilities. We finished 6 miles by 2:30 pm.
