Taking Flight

This trip had been planned for a long time, and was supposed to be the highlight of my hiking summer. As I mentioned in my last blog post , my knee had been bothering me, so I hiked Mt. Madison just to make sure that I was ready for Mt. Katahdin. I hadn't hiked Katahdin since July 11, 2019, so more than five years had passed, and I was ready to get back to it! I wouldn't be going alone. I would be joined by my friend Sylvia, her husband Alan, our friend Vanessa, and Sylvia's friend Chris. We would also be joined by Sylvia's brother-in-law Paul, but he wouldn't be hiking with us. The plan was for Paul to drive up early on the 29th and hike, and then he would meet us where we were staying when he was finished hiking. Meanwhile, Sylvia, Alan, Vanessa, and I would travel up in Alan's truck, and meet Chris before we headed into Baxter State Park, which is where Katahdin is located. Once we got to the park, we would park at Roaring Brook Campground, which is where I s...

This was a difficult hiking year, and it was all Mt. Madison's fault! Well, actually, not this Mt. Madison hike. This hike was fine. However, this July hike was the second of my two Madison hikes this year. Back in February, I injured my left knee hiking Madison during the winter. It felt fine during the hike, but then afterwards it definitely did not feel fine. It took me two months to recuperate from that injury, just in time to hike an AT section with Parched. My knee held up fine during that hike, but then a couple of days later I tripped crossing the street at home and seriously injured my right knee. I knew that I had a hike of Mt. Katahdin coming up in late July (blog on that one coming soon!), so I figured I had better test the knee and see if it could hold up against big mountains, and what better way to do that than by testing it in the same place where all of this originally started, Mt. Madison? Of course, I had other reasons, too. Back in June 2023, I did a hut to hut ...

It's been a long, long time since the last time I wrote one of these blog posts. Almost two years, I think. However, I'd like to get back into it, and my recent trip to Zealand Hut seems like a good opportunity. First, though, some introduction. Back in Summer 2024, my friend Sylvia put together a trip to Mt. Katahdin. Joining her on the trip were her husband Alan, her friend Chris, her brother-in-law Paul, our friend Vanessa, and I. Paul actually went up earlier and hiked the day before the rest of us because he was coming from farther away and wanted to avoid forecasted bad weather. Sylvia, Alan, Vanessa, and I rode up together and met Chris along the way. I'll probably do a separate post about it at some point, but for now the important thing to know is that we all enjoyed hiking together despite a couple trials and tribulations brought on by the weather. Thus, when Sylvia proposed that we should all do a winter hut trip together, I was in. We were originally supposed to...