A Summer View of Sugarloaf

A week ago on Sunday Tom declared we were going to recreate. It had been a tough summer - all work, no play.  The plan was to bike as far as we could up the trail to the Maine Huts and Trails Stratton Brook Hut http://www.mainehuts.org/ , then hike the rest of the way.

The wind was howling and it was very cool out there, so we wore fleece jackets and long pants. I don't really hike much these days.  If I do it's usually that window in the fall after the bugs croak and before the leaves drop.

We biked from the trailhead on Route 27 near the entrance to Sugarloaf, down the Narrow Gauge trail and then off on to the Huts & Trails system until we met a 90 degree in-your-face wall.  There was a part of us that didn't want to give up halfway up, but another part that said okay maybe we need to acknowledge our level of physical fitness here.  We hid our bikes and hiked a short but pretty rigorous final ascent to the hut.  I'd been up to the hut before it was finished, but had taken the service road which was long but easy (except for the last pitch to the top where the hut was situated which is a bear).

After a brief stop to check out the inside of the finished version of the main hut and bunk rooms (the huts in the MH&T system are all basically the same design), we hiked along the ridge looking for a view of Sugarloaf.  My limbs tangled with a few of Mother Nature's to get this shot, but was glad I did because the mountain looked stunning.  The blues and greens of summer in the mountains here the valley are like no others anywhere.

A Summer View of Sugarloaf • 8" x 8" gouache framed to 12" x 12" • $200