You Can't Win 'Em All
On Saturday Sadie and I decided to go on an adventure and piled in the truck, heading towards Duck Lake Public Reserved Land. (To be clear, I decided to go on an adventure but Sadie happily agreed it was a good idea.) I was pretty tired and didn't feel like doing a "workout," but Sadie needed a run and I felt like doing something different. I hadn't been to Duck Lake yet but had seen it on many maps and thought it would be fun to explore.
The maps indicated some remote ponds and lakes, a few trails, and even some old growth forest. Nice! Sounded like fun. The Maine state website has a long write-up about the area's geology, cultural history, and forestry. So we crossed the Penobscot, headed north, and then turned right in Enfield. We hit the dirt roads and kept going... and kept going.
I started to get a bit tired of driving, so I was psyched to see this sign and pulled over to check out the little kiosk.
I was very surprised to see the "You Are Here" hand drawn dot on the kiosk map. I didn't think that I had gone that far. But, I thought, "The land managers should know what they're talking about, right?" And on long dirt roads, everything starts to look the same. It was understandable that I could have gone further.
Looking at the map's You Are Here made me think that I would head up the road a ways to get to the Unknown Lakes. Then I could explore around Duck Lake on the way back to the truck. Walking along logging roads isn't the most exciting thing in the world, but Sadie could run and the slight breeze kept mosquitoes at bay. There wasn't any logging traffic. Unfortunately we did see some ATVs, of which Sadie is not a fan. They were very polite and slowed down to go by us.
We walked for awhile, enjoying the woods. I thought we must be getting close after walking for a couple miles. Seeing signs up ahead, I thought, "Here we go!" You can imagine my surprise at what I found.
After another 45 minutes of walking, we didn't seem to be approaching Duck Lake. On top of that, the wind died down a bit and the mosquitoes came out. I decided to spin it. No reaching Duck Lake today. We still had a solid 1 hour and 15 minutes of walking to get back.
Back at the truck I took another look at the map. Yes, indeed, the hand-drawn You Are Here was just blatantly wrong. But behind the kiosk there was a very faint, old trail. I knew that Nicatous Lake was just downhill from this spot, so we crashed into the woods, hoping to get a glimpse of water. We weren't disappointed. It was a beautiful part of Nicatous - no camps or boats in sight - just loons.
And then, turning around to head back to the truck, I experienced something first-hand that I never had before. Walking downhill on a faint trail is much, much easier than walking uphill on a faint trail. Walking downhill is natural, your body seems to head straight down. But looking back up the slope, I couldn't pick out the trail. It was just a wall of green leaves. "What an idiot," I thought, "This is how people make dumb mistakes in the woods." I wasn't worried at all - I knew where I was and I had a map and compass. I knew what direction the road ran and where the lake was. If I needed to, I could take a compass bearing. I didn't end up needing that. I headed uphill and found the faint trail and then a couple minutes later, popped out right by the truck. But it was a very interesting revelation, experiencing just how easy it is to get "closed in" by the thick Maine woods.
On our way home I stopped at Jack's Snack Shack on the north end of Nicatous and got a HUGE serving of hand-cut fries. This place serves the ATVing, snowmobiling, fishing, and hunting "crowds" that come up this way. It was awesome. Sadie sat next to me as we bumped our way back out to pavement and headed home. Further exploration will have to happen another day.
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