Saturday, Oct 10, 2020
Start/end: Starr King trailhead
Mileage: 7.18
Elevation gain/loss: 2813′
GaiaGPS track
We took our time this morning, after a late night. We left around 9am to go to Gorham, to pick up some baked goods, AAA batteries, and firewood. We were successful on all fronts, and then headed to the trailhead. The parking area was very crowded, so we parked across the street at what I thought was the winter overflow parking and turned out to be a country club (but where no one cared where we parked, so it didn’t much matter). We hiked up the road and headed up the trail. We made the Starr King summit in good time and took a break there. The greyjays were the most aggressive I’ve seen anywhere. One of them flew at me after I’d started eating a biscuit and stole it right out of my mouth, pushing off my face with its claws! After that, I was more guarded while eating. From there, we quickly hiked the mile to the Waumbek summit through the woods and then headed back down to the car; as we drove back towards the campsite, we saw a juvenile black bear run across the road near the golf course! It was lovely to finish early and spend time back at the campsite relaxing before the sun went down and it got cold and windy.
A storm rolled in around dark, and the wind and rain were fairly stressful. There were wind gusts strong enough to blow the 14×14 canopy in a 270-degree circle; I had to go out in the middle of the night to check on it and hammer the stakes back in again.
Transcending Mountains 