July 4
Ah the dreaded Owl's head. It's a long hike, but we had heard it wasn't too difficult because the first 8 miles were relatively flat. The last mile is where the climbing takes place. Tony and I had contemplated running it but we were concerned about a few things. We knew there were some creek crossings and didn't know if we would get our shoes wet and be miserable. We also didn't want to carry a pack because that would be hard to run with and without a pack we were stuck with the clothes we could wear, the water we could carry, and same with the food. So we said let's just stick with the normal hiking.
We wanted to get another early start because there was of course a good chance of afternoon showers. So we got on the trail again at 8 am. The first two miles were super flat, wide trails right by the Pemi river. Tony and I were creating silly games to keep us entertained...it was going to be a long day. After a bit the trail turned to single track and we met up with this guy from Buffalo, NY who comes out every year to get some hikes done. Owl's head was going to be his 43 peak!!! So only 5 more to go. That's so exciting. Once we came to the first river crossing we ended up leaving him though because he was super slow crossing and then took a break there. The river crossings were typical but we were glad we didn't have tennis shoes on. Because we spent so much of the hike near rivers it was very buggy which sucked. And the trail was pretty narrow/overgrown so I was constantly walking through spider webs. Most of the webs aren't that bad but there are some times that there is huge web with the big spider right in the middle. If you don't see it you'll walk right through it and it could be on your face or your body!! As you know, I hate spiders so this is one of my least favorite things about hiking. I've figured out that if I use my poles to swing ahead of me then it breaks most of the webs down.
Anyway, we got to the last mile within 3 hours. Which we were jacked about because book time was saying 10 + hours and if all we had left was a mile we'd probably finish in seven hours, tops 7 and half. Ah, little did we know. The last mile, was one of the steepest we'd encountered. We may have seen things just as steep but it was not as long. This was actually considered one of the "slides" and it's exactly what you would think a slide is. You are just scrambling up loose rocks that occasionally slide when you step on them. And the entire mile was completely exposed to the sun. It was nice to actually get some color on our skin but the heat was even more exhausting. I definitely went into zombie mode. 1/2 mile in the terrain changed some. Instead of loose rocks it was a really narrow trail and you would have to grab on trees to help you up. And then the last 1/4 mile was on top of the ridge and so frustrating because you felt you had finally reached the summit and should be done but it kept hiking you along the flat section that was really overgrown. Finally we made it to the end though. We sat down for once and ate our lunch with Mark, a 55 year old guy who was on his second round of hiking the NH 48. It was one of the longest breaks that Tony and I have taken while hiking. We watched Mark as he really enjoyed it; kicking his boots off, creating a little seat, the whole nine yards. We thought it was neat but agreed we'd never be able to take our boots off on a hike otherwise we wouldn't be able to put them back on.
Well the downhill was just as slow going as the uphill because it was so steep you really had to be sure-footed. Once a bee was bugging me and I got distracted trying to swat him. I took a step and this little branch caught my foot and I almost went head over heels down the slide. That would have been really bad, especially for Mr. Tony who was below me. But Tony and I made it safely down and then realized that whole 2 mile endeavor took us three hours! We were thinking it would take us 30-60 minutes. WTF?
Needless to say we wanted to make some good time on the way back. Besides stopping to pump some water we were cruising. But the last three miles were so long!!! Especially because the last two looked and felt like the end. But after 8 hours and 43 minutes we made it back to Pikey. We grabbed our flip flops and headed straight to the river to let our feet soak; it felt absolutely amazing. So the trail we took was the Lincoln Woods trail to Owl’s Head path and it was 18.4 miles with 2900 feet elevation gain.
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