The adventure to Mt. Carrigain was planned to celebrate and honor the upcoming wedding of August Drufke and Andrea Stavrinou. Departing from Boston, MA, a crew of guys set off to summit Mt. Carrigain by way of Carrigain Pond to the east. As simple as it sounds this trip was death-defying and involved pushing the boundaries of human strength and stamina.
On the morning of June 26, the team rallied at Boston’s Logan Airport, packed and ready to hit the trail. We convoyed in three vehicles headed North for a little over two hours until we arrived at a parking area in the National Forest. After divvying up the nourishment we strapped on our gaiters and slung on our packs and began to head uphill from the parking area at 1,650 feet elevation.
The saying “uphill, both ways” would be a good sub-title for this trip. The beginning of the trip was a pleasant hike along an old logging road for about one mile. Quickly the trail disappeared and became an orienteering exercise to maintain direction and a slog through dense firs and fallen trees to cover any distance. Our destination on that Thursday was Carrigain Pond — where we planned to camp for the night and set out on our ascent of Mt. Carrigain. Carrigain Pond was at approximately 3,200 feet elevation. Our plotted course would have us bushwacking for approximately 3 miles. We had planned to travel North-East to elevation 3,200 feet and then head westward along the 3,200 foot contour until we reached the pond. Little did we know that both altimeters we were using were out of calibration by 300 feet telling us at the higher elevations we had not yet reached our mark.
When we did get to what we thought was 3,200 feet we had actually spent hours climbing 300 feet higher in extremely difficult terrain. We were climbing vertical on soaked leaves and fallen trees that were only precariously perched on the moutain side. After about 7 hours we finally made it to Carrigain Pond. The pond is nestled between two ridges and outlets to the North. There are dense trees surrounding the pond and only one area has a viable campsite. It was clear that only a few people visit the pond every year and also clear that no one follows the course we plotted. Two interesting observations on the trip:
- We saw no trash or other sign of prior humans anywhere in the woods. It had probably been 50 years since anyone had been where we were and possibly another 50 before someone is crazy enough to follow us.
- We saw only a beaver when we first approached Carrigain Pond. We did not see any other animals, fish, amphibians, nor did we hear them. Surprisingly, at dusk and dawn there was no activity on the pond whatsoever.
Almost at every turn we found signs off Moose but never saw one. Where we camped the forest was filled with moose scat. We had little hope of seeing one as the obstacles along our course had us moving very slow. We were also making a disturbance as we moved with breaking branches under our footsteps and the frequent “#%&!@#” shouted through the trees as a branch whipped back into our faces or our footing gave way and we stumbled or fell.