adventure

Topsy Turvy Days of Christmas

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Anticipation.

That’s a watch word of the holidays. And as true this year as any other. But this year the beacon of Pico de Orizaba is looming ahead of us – our first January climb – and the first time we’ve climbed a big mountain only six months after another (Cotopaxi).

The path to the summit has been anything but straight this last few weeks. It’s been a bit like one of the children’s fairy tales I used to read where the young girl and boy suddenly find themselves in upside down land.

We’ve gone from the perils of party giving (only a few broken wine glasses) to the hurrahs of house guests. I’ve turned my normal cooking routine into a small scale catering operation. And we’ve had and are having a round of visits from both daughters 1 and 2 (now known as A and S), and boyfriends N and P, respectively, not to mention my parents and uncle.

In the midst of it all I keep thinking that in a week we are off to Mexico. And in another ten days or so we will be wending our way up 18,500 feet. I checked the weather and it actually doesn’t look too cold. Probably good, given that we are now acclimatized to 85 degree Orlando Christmases. I celebrated Boxing Day today by deciding to run a 5K in intervals. I probably should have started this particular training endeavor more than a week before the trip. Interesting – even with eight minute runs followed by a walk my times were the same or quicker than my regular long distance training runs. I’m just hoping a little of this will give me that final push that I need for the inevitably and always incredibly steep push up to the crater rim.

Christmas and family and friends. There’s a never ending flow of shared memories. But new ones are created each holiday. Like a river picking up flotsam and jetsam – they form new land – a big muddled complicated island somewhere near the ocean. I wouldn’t change a thing.

What It Is Like To Start A High Altitude Climb

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Cotopaxi sunrise

This week I’d planned to write a warm, witty post that would be a detour from swamps and summits and instead would celebrate the fifteenth birthdays of my two West Highland white terriers. Entitled “A Dog’s Life” or some such similar name.

But life overwhelmed, and as I find myself on an evening flight to Cleveland, yes, Cleveland, looking down on the ribbons of light that carve up the great American Midwest, and in the midst of December’s party giving and party going, the present purchasing, and the travails of travel logistics….such plans fell by the wayside.

Instead, I find myself focused completely on the seven days that J and I will have in just four weeks as we take our sea level lungs back up into the clouds, and, I hope, reach the great height of 18,491 feet at the summit of Pico de Orizaba.

In the midst of the December chaos, it’s the anticipation of the complete silence that surrounds you when you start a high altitude climb that’s serving as my reality check. It’s a world unto itself. It’s the period between sentences.

You rise at 1 a.m. or so, struggle into whatever layers you didn’t sleep in, clamber into your climbing harness, and strap on your helmet. You eat as much breakfast as you can force down at that godforsaken time, and hope that instant coffee will have enough caffeine to keep you going. Everyone is always tense. The guides are making quick forays outside the hut to check on conditions and temperature. No one knows exactly what either the mountain or your own body has in store for you.

Finally, hoping you’ve wasted only an hour or so, gear assembled and backpacks on, you venture out into what you hope to be a clear black night. The stars are as sharp as the lights of a laser pointer. If you’re lucky, there’s no wind. Ahead of you is the white glacier and the steep slope up. Eventually it’s time to rope up. It’s still totally silent and you don’t talk except for necessary instruction. You’re high above the clouds and your heart is pumping at a speed it never would normally. But you find a rhythm in the deep silence and time stands still. Minutes pass and you’re surprised when it’s time for the every hour break.

That feeling isn’t always with you on the mountain. Lots of times, and especially as the summit draws closer and you’re at the increasingly vertical slope leading up to a summit ridge, the rhythm goes, and it’s just kick and step and plant ice axe with every muscle of your body calling out loudly. Silent, that’s not.

But much as I love the summit, I treasure those quiet moments in the dark at the beginning.  There’s nothing to do but to climb, one foot in front of another, knowing that sunrise is waiting.

California – Swamp or Summit?

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Swamp or summit? I’m never quite sure in California. There are sloughs by the coast and mountains running down to the ocean. At any given time you can be at sea level or a couple of thousand feet up.

Perhaps that’s what makes the Monterey coastline so confusing, yet compelling. In North Carolina, where I grew up, there are three clearly marked ecosystems that every elementary school child learns – the Coastal Plain, the Piedmont, and the Appalachians. For me that easily broke up into beach vacation, home, or mountain vacation.

California isn’t that simple. And our large collection of family and friends out there adds to the complexity. At one moment I’m back in my twenties hanging out with my law school roommate and her now husband. At another point I find myself the mother of a 25 year old and a 22 year old. And other times I’m hearing news of an old friend of the family who’s now 94.

But in the midst of this I did manage to squeeze in some training and hiking, especially needed as our Orizaba trip inexorably draws closer. Thanksgiving Day started with a yoga class for some of the ladies – daughters A and S (who have rebelled against being called daughters 1 and 2 in this blog), my sister in law L and niece G (who actually goes by G and therefore has no hope of anonymity here). The males of our house party, including husband J, brother in law, and S’s boyfriend P (whose visit was a stop on a cross country driving trip back to New Orleans), showed no interest whatsoever in kicking off their turkey extravaganza with yoga. The class was in Carmel, in two of the most crowded studio rooms I have ever been in. There were a lot of “oms” and some live singing and it was a bit odd to have to do tree pose literally arm in arm with our neighbors, but all in the spirit of Thanksgiving.

Managed to follow that with a 5k run up into the hills of Monterey. If Florida offered something like that I’d never have to climb the stairs again.

imageFriday’s training consisted only of braving Black Friday crowds at the local Macy’s. A tradition that has been with us for many years and shows no signs of dying. I guess we did get in a quick walk before the annual post Thanksgiving party at yet another brother in law’s. Oh, there was a visit to the local Elks Lodge (great cocktails), but that’s another story.

imageBut on Saturday we did manage, with assorted friends and family, to hike a few miles around Point Lobos – possibly one of the most beautiful spots on the California coast. I’ve written about it before – https://fromswamptosummit.com/2014/12/01/point-lobos-summit-in-the-sea/ – and it hasn’t changed. For some reason we have had spectacular weather the last two trips. The deep blues and greens of the ocean are enhanced by the mystery of the brown kelp beds, which suggest an underwater secret city lurking below.

We always bookend these trips, it seems, with early morning flights, and before noon east coast time on Sunday we were winging our way over the snow capped, jagged peaks of the Sierras back to Orlando. Those are clearly summits. But no more so than getting spend time with family and friends.

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Where We Are Going Next – Pico de Orizaba, Veracruz, Mexico

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Photo – http://www.sil.org/~tuggyd/Pix – Pico de Orizaba

Over the last few months I’ve been publishing posts that refer to Pico de Orizaba, our next climbing destination, as though it’s a location at the forefront of everyone’s personal geography. That certainly can’t be the case – this particular mountain wasn’t close to the forefront of my mind until we started to try to find a big mountain that could be climbed in winter and in under seven days. When you live in Florida, the choices are limited.

So after looking at our options, we settled on the Orizaba Express trip, again through Mountain  Madness, the company that has successfully and safely led us up Mt. Elbrus in Russia and Cotopaxi, Illiniza Norte and Cayambe in Ecuador.

Pico de Orizaba is a strato volcano 120 miles outside of Mexico City, on the border of Veracruz and Puebla, by the town of Orizaba.  According to Wikipedia, fount of all knowledge, it has gone by a number of names. Non-Nahuatl speakers in the area call it Istaktepetl or “White Mountain.” During  the Pre-Columbian Era it was referred to as Poyautécatl, which means “the ground that reaches the clouds.”

My favorite of its names is  Citlaltépetlas, which is what it was called in the Náhuatl language when the Spanish arrived in this part of the world, and means “Star Mountain.”

During the colonial era, the mountain was known by the rather boring appellation, Cerro de San Andrés, due to the nearby settlement of San Andrés Chalchicomula at its base.

It is the third highest mountain in North America (behind Denali and Mt.  Logan), one of the volcanic Seven Summits, and the second most prominent volcano in the world, after Kilimanjaro. Pico de Orizaba measures 18,491 feet high, a statistic I find particularly notable because one of our teammates on Mt. Elbrus was part of the group that measured the mountain using GPS some years ago.

After arriving on AeroMexico, according to our trip itinerary, we will start acclimatizing in Mexico City, around 7,341 feet. From there we journey to the pyramids of Teotihuacan, and the next day climb Malinche, 14,640 feet. After that we travel to Tlachichuca, and – somewhat ominously – “transfer to four wheel drive” for the trip to the hut at Piedra Grande (13,972′). Our final acclimatization hike is to the toe of the Jamapa glacier at about 16,000′ and back down to the hut.  Summit day involves elevation gain of about 4,500′ – which is a lot, and may be one of the biggest elevation gains we will have done in one day. To reach the summit, you traverse a rocky section named after one of my favorite words, the Labyrinth. The section right below the caldera looks really quite steep – definitely an area for ice axes. If it’s anything like Cotopaxi, I anticipate collapsing at the top – assuming the gods bless us with good weather and the mountain lets us summit.

We’ll have a night in Tlachichuca and one final night in Mexico City – and then it will be back to Orlando on an airline I had never even heard of until yesterday, Volaris. I realized one of the reasons it’s so cheap is that you have to pay to select seats – but they let you have a free checked bag!

I’ve been looking for free images of the Labyrinth, but couldn’t locate any. Perhaps a testament to the comparative obscurity of this mountain.  But I love that it’s a mountain of many names. As I said above, and as many a mountain guide has told me – you don’t climb a mountain; it lets you climb it. And I hope that Pico de Orizaba will look favorably on us in just a few weeks.

 

My First Hike, Yorkshire, England, circa late 1960s/early 1970s

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With my grandparents and brother, on the way to Greasborough, South Yorkshire, circa late 1960s

This is a difficult post to write because it needs be just right. How do you capture your first hike – at least, the one that you remember? Something there planted a seed. And somehow that has ultimately led me to Cotopaxi, Ecuador, to Kilimanjaro, to Puzzle Mountain, Maine.

It started with the bridle path from Rawmarsh to Greasborough, both in South Yorkshire. My mother is English and my father is from Alabama (don’t even ask), and as they were both English professors, we had the luxury of spending weeks at a time in England during the summers. More specifically, in South Yorkshire, where my mother’s family is from.  Another time I’ll write about the coast and the moors. This is about an old fashioned trail, in the “industrial” north, replete with stiles.

In the late 1960s, my grandparents moved to very nice council housing, outside of their original home on Clay Pit Lane, yes, that’s a real address, in a small town called Rawmarsh, outside of Rotherham, in South Yorkshire. D. H. Lawrence, coal mining, and all that. My parents were married at the Rawmarsh parish church, St. Mary’s, and that’s where I was christened.  There were any number of small villages on the outskirts of Rawmarsh – from Parkgate (home of antique shops and the tripe shop) to Upper Haugh (a collection of rundown houses, at least rundown at that time, ten or so of which made up a village for mailing purposes). Perhaps now they are all rehabbed and are expensive weekend homes for IT people working in Sheffield.

The bridle path to Greasborough, a small village by a lake, was a special walk that entailed a picnic basket, a thermos filled with tea, and sandwiches. As you can see from the photo at the top, my grandmother did it all with stockings and a skirt. And it appears I was wearing a dress! One summer my parents left my brother and me in Yorkshire with our grandparents while they attended the very first Bloomsday conference in Dublin at which my father was presenting a paper on Joyce. (This is the sort of childhood memory you have when you’re the daughter of two English professors.) I’m pretty sure the hike to Greasborough is one of the activities that my poor grandparents used to try to entertain their excruciatingly Amerrican grandchildren.

Just at the head of the trail was an old shop that in America we’d call a general store. I remember my brother and me buying candies (sweets) for the walk from our allowances (pocket money).

The bridle path itself was old cobbled bricks, running through forests and between fields. Where one field bordered another you’d clamber over a wooden stile. See photo below. As I understood it, the stiles were meant to keep livestock from crossing unwanted into their neighbors’ fields. I’d never seen a stile in North Carolina, where I lived when I wasn’t in England.

My Grandmother and me
My Grandmother and me
On the left side of the bridle path was a gully filled with beds and beds of bluebells. I so wish I had photos of them because I’ve never seen them since – at least not like that. Six inch stems with rich indigo bells of flowers cascading down. On the right of the bridle path, if you ventured off, was the old head of a mine. This had been a working world, where many spent the sunlit days hundreds of feet down mining the coal that was fueling the mid twentieth century economy. The hole into the ground looked like an entrance into some magical world to my brother and me. We just knew it was a spot we were told never to go – we could fall down and never come out. Every time we passed the hollow that housed the mine head, we always veered off to have a look.

As you continued on, you eventually reached a lake, and I believe a dam of some sort, and on into the village of Greasborough. If memory serves, we’d stop at that point and get an ice cream or something for the walk back.

In 1985 or so, when I returned with my boyfriend – ultimately to be husband – I think after we hiked the few miles to Greasborough, we caught a bus back to Rawmarsh. He was struck by the public bathroom by the bus stop in Greasborough – a stone enclosure on the side of the road, the facilities of which involved nothing more than a gutter with water flowing through it.

I haven’t been to this spot for at least 30 years. And I’m pretty sure that the last time I went, you could already see housing developments over the bluebell beds, and I’m sure the old mine head had been cordoned off and made safe from incursions of eleven year olds.

But the magic of that old bridle path – and the people who walked it all those years ago – still resonates like some chord left reverberating. And when I climb mountains, or hike in the woods, that’s the fairy magic I’m returning to.

West Orange Trail Redux

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We are two months out from Pico de Orizaba, so it’s time for…the 20 mile hike on the West Orange Trail!

For those of you who’ve read this blog before, you know this isn’t the first time we’ve embarked on this somewhat odd urban hike through the wilds of Orlando’s suburbs. But this time we decided to start from the Apopka end and finish at the Killarney Station, just five miles beyond Winter Garden. (Sorry, Apopka – you just don’t compete with Winter Garden’s breweries and brasseries.)

Themes of the day were butterflies, bugs, and bruises. The butterflies you’ll see in the photos below. The bugs are not pictured, but it turns out that every beautifully shaded bench is equally viewed as such by Florida’s massive mosquitos. And the bruises are from the last two miles where I decided my boots were laced too loosely, tied them up tightly – and hugely over compensated.

So here’s the blow by blow –

It’s 6:55 a.m. We violated all of our vows to prepare sensibly by not going to sleep early enough.  Instead we followed dinner with our friends M and S (see “travel with friends – the Iceland series” https://fromswamptosummit.com/2015/03/15/iceland-part-1-a-day-in-reykjavik/) with a visit to an Irish pub, Fiddlers Green, to hear The Windbreakers. We’ve been listening to this Irish music duo since all of our kids were knee high to a grasshopper. But it wasn’t conducive to an early morning rising.

Nonetheless, by 8:15 or so we contacted Uber to take us up to the trailhead. It was way too early to get any of our nearest and dearest to drive 30 minutes on a Saturday morning. I’m sure I typed in the right address on the Uber app – to Park Avenue in Apopka – but somehow our driver thought he’d picked up a trip to Park Avenue in Hollywood, Florida. Now that would have been a worthy affair.

Mile 2 – after exiting our Uber ride (surely no more stylish way to arrive), by the Apopka Middle School, we suddenly found ourselves in a throng of a couple hundred middle school students, some with parents, walking a walk to raise money for either breast cancer or cystic fibrosis. Whatever the worthy cause, I’m embarrassed to say we walked as fast as possible to get ourselves out of the throng.

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Here are  the snippets from my contemporaneously recorded notes.

Scraps of middle school conversation. “She blew up in the middle of class” (I really wanted to know how that happened). Very few boyfriend/girlfriends hand holding. I’m sure there was more of that in my day in the ’70s.

Downtown Apopka. The Catfish Place restaurant amidst a sea of fast food establishments.  Dunkin Donuts taken to an art form.  Right next to the BBQ place. Turns out BBQ was a theme for the day.

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Mile 3.  Shaded woods, winding trail, lots of churches. As before, I’m baffled by St. Elizabeth, Church of God by Faith next to the Freedom Missionary church.  More BBQ smokers smoking away by modest and well kept homes. Moving on – we pass what must be a borrow pit for the interstate construction project.

Mile 4. Two people pass us, riding what look like elliptical bikes. Never seen them before. All of a sudden I realize my iPhone email isn’t working and it wipes out and then re-downloads my messages since August. Not a big deal – except I’m already fielding work calls on this Saturday morning.

The remnants of Florida’s fern industry – right next to Nelson’s Florida roses and Hippy’s Junk Auto Parts. That’s really the name.

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At Mile 5 we take a break – where we encounter the first of the mosquito swarms.  I also inadvertently hit my Fitbit watch face and it starts counting miles all over again on the GPS. For the remainder of the hike, I’m adding 5.23 miles to what the current  mileage shows. That’s a challenge to your math after about six hours or so.

Mile 6. We’ve made our way to the Buddhist temple,which was such a surprise the first time around.
A service is going on. I could hear voices but  couldn’t make out any words. Through the open door at the back I could see the monks in their yellow robes.

Immediately after we pass a home decorated with great concrete statues – next to one of several town homes abutting the trail where birthday celebrations seemed to have started hard and early. “Go Jerry” – whoever you are.

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Mile  7.  We’re back on a sidewalk by a main road. Housing complex to our  left, clear cutting and a seemingly abandoned housing development on our right. It’s really hot. We’ll see a long stretch of unshaded asphalt ahead of us and just think – go for it.

Mile 8.  Off the streets again onto a trail.  But it’s a stereotypical Florida image. A golf course on the left, a memorial garden on the right, and a filled in swimming pool by some outbuildings. Golf, then die?

Mile 9. We stop for lunch under an overpass.  There are golf courses on either side, but there are no bugs because there are no trees. And we forgot the bug spray anyway. All of a sudden, we realize what we had thought were some sort of exotic trash cans are really water coolers. Who knew.

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Mile 10.  Tiger swallowtail butterflies; beautiful light brown and lavender moths, Florida’s version of monarchs.. Caterpillars. I spend a lot of time thinking about shape shifters.

Mile 11. Time for blister and foot repair. Get a call from daughter #2. She sounds good. Way away from golf courses now and back into that odd cacophony of semi rural and suburbs. There’s an old warehouse on the right, and a band practicing.

Mile 12. We see a huge tortoise.  We pass Ocoee High School. There’s an ag program, and the three cows and donkey make  lot of noises as we pass. Reach another rest stop – the “Chapin station.” Lots more housing developments. A bathroom break. I see a flame bush over the top of the white vinyl fence lining the trail.

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Mile 13. I’m getting tired.  After some beautiful wooded and agricultural sections, we pass a truck storage spot. Guys are hanging out by their big flatbeds. A smoker is going. Looks like a good time on a Saturday afternoon if you have to hang out by your work truck.

There are old abandoned orange groves and a few packing buildings. There’s a concrete plant.   Seven  more miles to go and my discipline of a sentence or two each mile breaks down. Here’s what we saw – in retrospect – moving into Winter Garden. An absolutely perfect small town restoration, with a lively downtown and lots of people, enjoying a November Saturday. The last five miles are a park-like trail from Winter Garden to the Killarney Station with oh so eco friendly housing developments – but they are still housing developments. The odd farm opposite on the other side of the trail houses zebras and ostriches. There’s a parking lot for mega party buses. And a covered bridge going over the interstate that we were sure was swaying beneath our feet. Or that could just have been the fact it was mile 19. Nothing beats Florida for iconoclasm. Suburbs. Spanish moss. Greenness that just doesn’t quit. Even the golf courses can’t eradicate it. And peering down at it all this great blue flat sky.

After we reached Killarney Station and met up with friends A and T – and enjoyed beer and pizza at Winter Garden’s Crooked Can craft brewery (the thought of an ice cold beer definitely helped motivate those last five miles) – we wended our way back to College Park. But on the way we passed by the Citrus Bowl where the Electronic Daisy electronic dance music festival,  replete with ferris wheels, carnival rides and neon sound, was going on. Even in my house late at night, some miles away, I could hear the bass.

It wasn’t iconoclastic, somehow. It was just another way of finding the same sort of engagement I felt out there on the trail. It’s Florida.

The Weekly Summit

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The saddle of Mt. Elbrus, Caucasus, Russia
The saddle of Mt. Elbrus, Caucasus, Russia

I’ve been practicing yoga on Wednesday nights now for at least ten years. Each time I enter the yoga studio at 7:30 I’m struck by the feeling that now I know I’ll make it through the rest of the week. That old “it’s all downhill from here” saying. (Of course, climbing down a mountain can be the hardest part, but somehow that’s not true for surviving Thursdays and Fridays.)

That hour and 15 minute carve out on Wednesdays marks having reached the summit of the week. And it’s interesting how time has a way of recreating those mountain patterns for us, peaks and valleys and traverses – even when we’re not aware of it.

Yesterday I went to go buy a new pair of running shoes. When the very nice person at the store looked me up on the computer he did a double take – it was exactly one year ago to the day since I’d bought my last pair of running shoes. I had no idea. It must have been some internal clock thing. (Or just really worn out shoes.)  I can prove it was a year ago too – just look at https://fromswamptosummit.com/2014/11/02/training-and-the-power-of-the-shoe/ , published on this blog on November 2, 2014! A lot of miles on those shoes, and a lot of highs and lows.

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I also managed to find a Bikram yoga class to go to yesterday – the first in several months since the studio closed. And you know where it was? In the very same location where I took my very first Bikram class some 10 or so years ago. That was before the new fancy studio, back in the somewhat dingy location down by the expressway, in a terribly humid room – but oh how good the class felt. It almost felt like a full circle….

And finally, another ritual that marks the pattern of time – dear friends whom we met in Lamaze classes (we regarded ourselves as the only normal people in the class!) have been spending Halloween with us for at least the last 22 or 23 years. The four children between us have now moved on, but the Halloween tradition remains, marking the point each year that starts us up the steep incline toward the holidays.

It’s reassuring to sense those patterns. One thing about mountains is that they are predictable in one way. There’s always an up and there’s always a down. As I train for Pico de Orizaba the first week in January 2016, I keep thinking about that.

Observations on a Mountain and Otherwise

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Ecuador - Avenue of Volcanoes
Ecuador – Avenue of Volcanoes

Lots of times on the way up a mountain it’s pitch dark. And even if you’re lucky and the path is lit by thousands of silver stars and perhaps the glow of a brilliant white moon, it’s pretty difficult to look around you to take it all in as you trudge up, all senses aimed at planting your feet so as not to take a tumble down hundreds of meters of snow, ignominiously ending up on a pile of rock.

Even in daytime it’s not always easy to take the extra moments to look about. By then you’re worried that the snow is softening, avalanche and rock fall risk getting greater, and you still have to clamber back down.

The last few weeks have presented just enough strange little coincidences that remind me, though, that sometimes it is worth taking those extra moments and noticing those connections you might otherwise miss. One thing about running as part of training – it gives you a lot of time just to observe – and basically to try and focus on anything other than how sore you feel.

I wrote about the first such coincidence a couple of weeks ago. That is, ordering a glass of Malbec at two restaurants over 1000 miles apart, two nights in a row – and being informed at each that was the last Malbec – not of the bottle but at the entire establishment!

This past week, I learned via Facebook on the same day that two unrelated people I know, one through work and one an old college friend, were both making their standup comedy debuts in a very far apart states on exactly the same night. I had not hitherto thought of stand up comedy as something hordes of people were lining up to do.

And just recently, while engaging in some unexpected dialogue about the poet W.S. Merwin, again on Facebook, of all places, a friend mentioned her love of his book, Vixen. Back in 1996 or so, I cut that poem out of The New Yorker when it was first published, and it’s been on my work bulletin board ever since. (Somehow I just add to the bulletin board. I never take anything off. It has an archeological feel by now.)

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Now, any two things can look strangely connected if you examine them hard enough. And it certainly makes life more interesting to do so. But the reality is that there are an awful lot of fun things to look at out there that can liven up any part of a journey.

There was the incredible wild orchid I saw in Ecuador in our hike to see the hummingbirds. And on Friday when I walked home from work I was delighted to find an Italian restaurant that featured Hawaiian pizza and gyros. And as close as my own backyard are some tiny basil plants springing up volunteer. We’ll see how long they last in our Florida “winter.”

Taken through an IPhone rain cover - a little blurry!
Taken through an IPhone rain cover – a little blurry!

We have just over two months before we attempt Pico de Orizaba. There will be a lot to look at before then.

The Real Mysteries of Puzzle Mountain, Maine

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Looking up toward Puzzle Mountain
Looking up toward Puzzle Mountain

Mysteries surround Puzzle Mountain, which was the site of last weekend’s Maine adventure.

After a successful rampage through the L.L. Bean clearance facility, we started the journey northeast to the weekend home of N’s parents. It’s a lovely old farmhouse near the Appalachian Trail. And on the way – the mysteries begin.

9. How does Google maps pick its prescribed route from point A to point B?  Somehow we found ourselves taking a one lane road dotted with potholes through multiple small towns. Extremely scenic, but I’m sure there was a more direct route.

8. What’s a bean supper? Every small town in Maine seems to have one on Saturday night.

7. What are confederate flags doing in Maine? That was a really weird one to me. Here in the south, we spend a lot of time working to take them down, but they seem to be going strong up north.

6. How many ways can you cook apples? Daughter A is an expert pie maker (a skill she did not inherit from her beloved mother) and brought a delicious apple pie up to Maine, which she somehow carried on an Uber ride to a train station, on a train to Portland, and on our trip in N’s Previa up to Northwest Maine. She returned to Boston with another two bags of apples, picked fresh off the tree. Unclear what can be done with a hundred or more apples.

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5. What mountain ranges can you see from Puzzle Mountain? We set off fairly early on Sunday for our trek up the mountain. It was a short drive to the trailhead, and the leaves were at their peak color. The trail climbs fairly steeply in sections, but is interspersed with enough flat sections to keep it interesting. The first part was all birch forest, pale yellow leaves set off against the peeling white bark of the somewhat spindly trunks. Finally, we came to an opening in the woods and could see across the patchwork valley to the White Mountains of New Hampshire and other unnamed ridges.

Birch forest
Birch forest

4. Where were all the people? It was Columbus Day weekend (or more correctly, Indigenous People’s weekend), and I would have expected at least some other hikers, if not the raging crowds we’d faced on Mt. Washington last year. But except for one other group who only made it to the first peak of the mountain, we saw absolutely no one.

Mount Washington in the distance
Mount Washington in the distance

3. Where did the blue blazes go? Most of the trail is nicely maintained. But after we reached the second and highest peak (a whopping 3100 feet), we took a loop trail down that was considerably overgrown. At one point, coming out onto a rock outcropping, it simply petered out into a tree. Although there were some remnants of blue paint on the rock, and a very misleading cairn, it turned out the real trail was in a completely different direction. And it turns out that daughter A’s belief that always going left was the right answer did not work.

2. Which way is down? Now, this seems like a question with an obvious answer. But not so. The descending trail seemed to have as many uphill parts as down, and at one point I was convinced we were corkscrewing ourselves around the mountain.

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1. Where is Puzzle Mountain? Some mysteries are best left unsolved. And I promised our hosts that I’d help keep it hidden!

Starting the Puzzle – Portland, Maine

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Starting the puzzle.
Starting the puzzle.

From the top of Puzzle Mountain in Maine we could see the White Mountains of New Hampshire and the peak of Mt. Washington, which we had summited exactly 364 days before. But all good mysteries need plot development before they are solved. And Puzzle Mountain is no different.  Our story starts on Friday, when we left Orlando at the ungodly hour of 7 am to travel to Portland, Maine, via JFK.

This mini vacation was what has become our annual fall trip to New England to see daughter #1, also known as A, and boyfriend N. Despite her tropical upbringing, this visit A explained that two winters in Boston had inured her to the hardships of snow and she no longer needed the down jackets her father and I donned as soon as we experienced under 50 degree temperatures. (To look at us, you would hardly think we were climbing glaciers three months ago or planned another ice related climb in January.)

Mysteries always start with a blast from the past. This one began with a passing suggestion on Facebook from an old friend from high school, whom I had not seen in 36 years, to let her know if our Maine trip would take us into Portland. So what could be more natural than to message her from the plane (hey, free wifi on JetBlue – although free bags are a thing of the past) that we would be landing in two hours.

Once we arrived at Portland’s small, moose themed airport, we received the best travel advice we’ve ever obtained from an airline representative. We had no assigned seats for our return flight on our Travelocity booked tickets, and thought we should try to get them in advance at the airport. Turns out, all that was available for no fee were center seats scattered throughout the plane. But, the customer service representative assured us, if we simply bided our time, all those empty $50 extra leg room seats would have to be given to those of us seatless passengers at no extra charge – and so they were.

In Portland, we didn’t follow the millennial pattern of taking Uber to the AirBnB. Yes, it was an Air BnB booked by the daughter (we were rejected from the one that had chickens but this one had enough unusual art to make it interesting), and instead took a taxi because we felt sorry for the driver. But after he couldn’t find the address we had second thoughts.

In any event, after enjoying the artisanal pastries left by the proprietress of our two bedroom flat, we walked a few rainy blocks to the mead tasting room. How else could one possibly start off a Maine weekend? There we met up with L, last seen in the summer of 1979, and managed easily to catch up on 36 years of kids, careers, and marriage, not necessarily in that order.

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After tasting six varieties of mead (who knew?) – ranging from dry to apple to lavender to chai – we ventured into Portland proper. It’s not a big city, but has maintained a charming downtown, with retail shops, galleries, restaurants and bars, and an amazing number of not very expensive jewelry shops selling lots of hand crafted jewelry. Apparently there’s a long jewelry making tradition in New England. Again – who knew?

L then took us to MJ’s Wine Bar, where we met up with her husband. Daughter’s boyfriend also arrived, following a long drive up from south of Boston.

Another mystery. Thursday, at a restaurant in Orlando, I’d been offered the last glass of Malbec in house. Friday, at MJ’s, the same thing happened. There has to be a message.

Next day, following a very seafood oriented dinner – at the presumably now-Malbecless Dave’s Restaurant – we sampled more of Portland’s wares. Breakfast was Hilltop Coffee, a small coffee shop with excellent egg and cheese sandwiches a couple of blocks from our Air BnB in the arts area of Portland.

Portland, Maine, reminded me much of Portland, Oregon, with well kept gardens, two story clapboard dwellings, and lots of coffee.

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We then walked down to the waterfront park, which houses the USS Portland monument. It was a chilly morning, but beautiful, and the view from the big old Victorians facing the waterfront must have been marvelous. The yard sale at one was particularly interesting and I’m sure A will treasure her one egg skillet for life.

Next stop was the Portland Art Museum. Although small, there is an excellent permanent collection, but we especially enjoyed the “You can’t get there from here” exhibit, featuring Maine artists. The installation of the bathtub and TV video of aging hippies rowing their way through ocean waves particularly spoke to me. It was also fun to lie on our backs on mats on the floor and look at the video screens of the sky moving overhead at one of the more interactive pieces.

After a trip to the sock shop (who doesn’t need a pair of fall socks decorated with marshmallows, hot chocolate mugs, and fireplaces), lunch was at the original Otto’s, a Portland pizza tradition. The Allagash saison draft beer didn’t hurt either.

But by then it was almost 2, and if we wanted to make it to the Mecca of outlet shopping, it was more than time to leave for LL Bean, in Freeport. Gear and work clothes are important. Freeport was packed. It’s a bit incongruous to find quaint B&Bs mixed with new outlets – I suppose one can enjoy organic muffins and spend the rest of the day bargain hunting for clothes made in China. But after inadvertently entering through the gun and ammo building (who knew how many varieties of camouflage there really are) we managed to help prop up the economy in the outlet store – and at least the Bean Boots I bought A were actually made in Maine.

It speaks for itself.
It speaks for itself.

And that purchase brings intrepid shoppers and tourists alike to what will be the next blog post – rural Maine, confederate flags, and where in the world is Puzzle Mountain.