Northern Hang 2010

**Geo-Girl725** · 06-22-2010, 21:45

Hey Everyone!

I joined a great group of (all) guys for my first Northern Hang. It was such a blast! I was the only girl on this trip, so I felt a bit out of place, but its alright I am used to hanging with a bunch of guys. I really enjoyed the hike with everyone and can't wait until the next planned "hang & hike".

Shug - Thanks for having such a great sense of humor and eating all of my cupcakes! Thought of a name for myself, hope ya like it...LOL!!! My intoduction is in the intro area and the history behind the nickname.

It was such a pleasure meeting all of you guys! I hope to meet more new faces next time (hopefully more women will join us on the next hike). I could not believe there was a total of 16 people who came on this trip! It was so exciting to meet everyone and the pot luck was awesome.

Thanks guys for such a great time! I will definitely be looking forward to the next one.

**Savage** · 06-22-2010, 22:17

After a good nights sleep and first hang in my new WBBB 1.7(just got it Wednesday). We all woke up and had breakfast or what should resemble this first meal of the day. Both Theresa and I packed up everything for the days hike. After the completion of some vehicle shuffling, we started off on our trek. The trail we initially took seemed to be an old RR bed as it didn't have very much slope. Other than being mucky in a few spots the cut across trail wasn't too bad. The views of the woods and small ponds along the way made it all worth while. We hiked the 1.8 miles to the intersection for the North Country Trail in about 45 minutes. If the group hadn't been standing at this intersection, I might have missed the trail completely. We did some quick map and GPS checking to make sure we were all on the right track and headed on south down the trail. The terrain changed once we were on the NCT. The easy gentle slopes of the RR bed had gone away quickly. The trail changed from easy to moderate to moderate to hard. Things got more interesting and the views came through to help pay for this extra work we were now doing. It was hard to decide which part was best, the ponds and lakes, the forest views or the signs and tracks from all types of animals that share the trail with us. There were tracks from deer, bear, elk, horse? and all of us. The ponds, lakes and marshy areas were beyond anything I have seen on my many backpacking adventures.

After hiking a few miles we stopped at Wishbone Lake

and took in the views, took some pictures and some of us took a leak. After about 10 minutes we all threw our packs back on and headed on down the trail. We crossed a logging road and then came to a paved road. We hiked down the hillside and up the slope to get on top of the road. Once on top of the road, it wasn't really clear where the trail went back on the other side of the road. After some map checking and looking around, we found the other side of the trail. The sign said, Esox Lake .8 miles. We reached Mirror Lake and incorrectly identified it as Esox Lake. The bench on the trail called out to me, sit down and enjoy the view, so we did. We sat and looked at the view on Mirror Lake for about 5 minutes and decided to head on down the trail. We caught up with the other guys at the real Esox Lake. We all sat there for a while and re-fueled with Granola Bars and water. The camp site it was decided was a little over a mile further down the trail. Once we had had our fill of sitting, conversing and re-fueling, we headed on towards camp. After what seemed like 30 minutes, we reached camp. We all enjoyed the stories from Hangin Yankee and soon to be named, Headrush, about the Elk and Bear.

The night was peacefull and quiet(except for the snoring). We had a lazy start to the day, getting packed up and on the way about 12:00noon. The remainder of the hike would be about 3 miles to the parking lot. There were many more hills on this part of the trek. We managed to make it. Just before the parking lot, was a grove of un-cut timber from the logging era and the trees were immense. Some of the biggest trees I had ever seen in my life.

Once in the parking lot, the question was, do we hike more or call it a day. The mind said yes but, my feet said no. Maybe another day. I can't wait to go up and hike more of this great area. There are enough trail systems in this region, that I may not be able to hike them all in my lifetime. I will give it a good shot though.

I had a great time with all that came. I learned many new things from everyone. Thank you to Snipen for getting the ball rolling for this hang. I look forward to many more hikes with all of you. Thank you.

John "Savage"