Mount Agamenticus

Last week, when I was blown away that it was regularly in the sixties in the middle of March (it was 84 today), I decided to get the legs working again and go for a local hike. I found quite a nice little treasure only about 25 minutes away, but literally looking at a map for a mountain near me, then searching for details on the good ole internets. Mount Agamenticus in York, Maine, turned out to be perfect- a 2 mile loop around the mountain with a very manageable 700 feet or so of climbing. A 4000 footer this was not, and it hit the spot perfectly for a tired old man like me. 

Usually hiking in the summer, it was weird to see trails so hideously brown. But this trail definitely made me start thinking about mountain biking though.

The main loop I did, called "Ring" was perfect, and it's what I would recommend to anyone trying to hike here. It goes right around the mountain, with a brief detour to the top (via Witch Hazel trail), which you then walk back down to rejoin Ring. Whoever designed the trails here did a good job but got perhaps a little excited with limited space, making perhaps too many trails.

huh?

But I love trails, so all the power to you, pal. Walking down, I even saw some snow in some places.

But back to the summit, which is pretty awesome. Coming out of the trail, there were signs about work being done, and they weren't kidding. Apparently, from what little I read and what much I guessed, the people who manage the mountain decided to clearcut the entire summit to allow for better views. While the inner hippie tree-hugger in me (ok, maybe outer) weeps at the idea of killing nature to better view nature, I can't really argue against their idea. This is a small mountain, but the biggest within many many miles, so having the ability to actually see everything around you (from the Belknap region to the White Mountains) is pretty awesome. 

The top was literally a wasteland:

With, for some reason, a ton of buildings. One was a learning center, and the other a building dedicated to the conservation of the area. Unfortunately, other than buildings, the main area was just dirt (read: mud) everywhere and nothing else. If this is all grass in the summer (which I'm guessing it is), this is probably glorious.

I'm guessing this made a lot more sense when there were trees everywhere, but there was a nice mini observation deck to get some sweet views on the lower edge of the mountain. It still helped even with no trees.

What ruled about hiking on the day I did, was that I got to watch the clouds go from dark and murky with zero sun to full on changing-every-10-minutes cloudporn, to full on sunset with rays of light. It was perfect for an instagram addict. I took a bunch of shots using my rad HDR program on my phone. In fact, way too many to be honest. Here are the best: 

summiting the top of a wasteland against fire clouds

to find more wasteland. This is my favorite from the day.

The clouds were fairly standard cloudporn from the top of the observation deck,

but to the left, sun rays the likes of which I've never seen started cracking through,

developing into a weird circular formation that my 5th grade brain couldn't help but mentally nickname "god's butthole,"

to an exploding circle with rays of light shooting everywhere. I love this shot, especially with the tower in front of it:

The circle then exploded into scattered clouds everywhere. It was really pretty amazing up there, watching the entire murky sky break apart into sunshine right before my eyes with nothing else distracting the view, and nobody else distracting from the sweet sounds of Jimmy Eat World's "Goodbye Sky Harbor" in my ears.

damn.

A few people did show up though, by car. I learned after hiking back down and turning up the hill directly next to the base parking lot, that the summit was right there- just like a half mile up the road from the base parking lot. This meant to the mountain biker in me, that I could drive to the top, ride down, then ride/walk (definitely walk) back up. It also meant that since it was now sunset, I could drive back up to the amazing view I had left 40 minutes ago, now in sunset mode. 

yea, this is soooo touched up in the HDR program, but still. NICE.

This was a great small hike- perfect for family/kids or super out of shape fatsos who want to get their legs moving again. People are very dedicated to keeping it nice, there are learning centers and all types of conservation things, tons of information on little wooden stands all along the hike (from the history of the mountain to the science of mountains, trees, etc), and you can take in incredible views even without the hike. Nice find. Nice day in mid March. 

currently listening to: The Dear Hunter- The Color Spectrum (Blue)