Late Winter Hiking in Maine

Back into the late winter/ early spring Maine forest.  Here tonight with a half-dozen family and friends sitting in a handmade Adirondack chair by the side of the radiant wood stove at Camden Hills State Park.
The air is clear and clean, blown in from a Canadian cold front. The stars are magnificent,  with rushing melt waters triangulating our shelter tonight.
My brother Roy, friend Tenzing,  and I walked 8 miles from my house in the other end of town to get here.  We are in for two nights. Tomorrow we will walk all around the Park.     There is no way anyone can get around here this weekend without Stablicers, Kahtoolas, or some such traction devices.  Here’s a brief video clip of the icy path that was with us for 60% of the trail this weekend :

Thinking that treachery had avoided him, Tenzing removed his Kahtoolas after descending most of Zeke’s Trail to the Ski Lodge.  Less than 10 yards after he started out,  he slammed down to his right side, and before he struggled himself to right up, the micro spikes were strapped back on the feet.
Today,  I became aware of how stubborn  I can get. It had to do with strapping on my Stabilicers. It is a parallel hiking behavior to putting on  my raincoat, where I delay like crazy, to the point where I am wet by the time I put it on. Today it was my resistance to strapping on the Stabilicers,  an action that takes all of  two minutes to complete. I came to my senses on the steady descent to this shelter, where I put them on. I have had more than my share of trail disasters at the end of a day. This is too good to screw up.

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