Taking Flight

I enjoy winter backpacking. When I did a winter backpacking trip to the Bonds back in March 2020 (literally the day before the world went crazy from the COVID-19 pandemic), I enjoyed the peace and serenity of being by myself in the woods, although some of that might be selective memory comparing it to the pandemic craziness that came afterwards. When I did a winter backpacking trip to Owl's Head last year, I also enjoyed it, though I think that I prefer shelters over tents in the winter (and in the non-winter, for that matter). When this winter started, I wanted to make sure that I had at least one backpacking trip planned. At one point I had planned to combine Garfield with the Twins , but I quickly realized that was a bad idea. Instead, I decided to do Garfield as its own trip. I wanted to wait until February to do it so that I would have enough light. I didn't know it at the time, but that would prove to be a very wise choice. I let myself start a little later than normal,

On this weekend, I had an obligation at work on Sunday, so I knew that I would only be able to do a one day hike. That was tricky, because most of the winter hikes that I still have to do are going to involve multi-day excursions. I still had to get Garfield in New Hampshire, but I was planning on that as a backpacking trip. I needed to get all the peaks in Vermont, but that's a long drive. Even most of the Maine peaks I have left require some difficult logistics at this point. However, I still had Old Speck on my list, and that's a one-off, so it seemed like a good choice. I have hiked Old Speck twice before. The first time I hiked it was to finish my New England 67 (every four thousand footers in New England), and my friend Sylvia came with me for that hike. That was a beautiful fall day, and kind of a perfect hike. The second time I hiked it was when I was finishing up Maine on the Appalachian Trail last summer . By that point in the hike I was hot and exhausted, and the exp