This time I remembered the GPS and made a new track of 9.2 miles. The trail started and ended in a two-mile field of head-high ragweed and red raspberries, narrow enough that the trekking poles were a hindrance.
There is always a moment of anticipation and pause at the entrance to the woods and the beginning of the climb. Sometimes it is a question of which stick or stone will leave its mark on me this time. Sometimes it is excitement about what feather will turn up.
It was 11:11 AM when I passed the "no maintenance" spot. This trail from the west has been closed for years. It would have saved a couple of miles. But I suppose landowners at the bottom do not wish to have spitting and smelly hikers traipse across their property.
There is a rough and dirty little cabin near the summit that led me to believe I had made the top. But I was wrong.
It was a pseudo summit, faux success, a place where the fire tower used to stand.
I was eating a peanut butter and cracker lunch, thinking about the downhill trip, when two Canadians came through speaking Quebecois. They hailed from somewhere further up the trail, and I realized that I would have to keep climbing another hundred feet to reach the true summit. So I look sheepish.
It was a long hike, hot at the bottom, not as long as some: 4,180 feet, 9.2 miles, 5 hr 13 min.
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