Written by LAC Guide, Kate Burnham

On Saturday our group of 12 met for lunch, introductions and a trip review at the Orange Cat Cafe in Kingfield and then began the long, winding, and bumpy drive to the Long Falls Dam Road Trailhead in New Portland.

We had a wonderful snowshoe into the Flagstaff hut on approximately 6” of freshly groomed packed powder on the Maine Huts & Trail trail. We dropped our packs and some of us headed back out on the trail to explore, while others cozied up by the fire with a book, and another volunteered her time to help shovel the snow dumped by the storm.

We snowshoed to a far point where we enjoyed gorgeous views before ducking back and into the woods and out of the wind. We hugged the shore, made a loop, and ventured out onto the lake just in time to watch the sunset and catch a glimpse of the moon rise.

This weekend there happened to be a volunteer care-taker training at the hut and we were lucky enough to have a volunteer chef prepare our meals. After a delicious dinner, we headed out onto the Birches Trail and onto the lake for a walk under the light of the snow moon.

Not quite ready for bed, many of us teamed up for a challenging game of Codenames – where we took turns as the spymaster and our true competitiveness came out! It was about -9 degrees when we all headed back to our bunkrooms to climb into our sleeping bags. We were grateful to our care-takers for stoking the fires and keeping us warm.

The next morning, we enjoyed a hearty breakfast, cleaned up, moved piles of wood, packed up, and headed out just as the temperatures were warming up (it was a balmy 11 degrees). We snowshoed along the beautiful and sunny Shore Trail enjoying gorgeous views of the Bigelows. Breaking trail for the last mile was a good challenge! We gathered on the lake one last time to soak up the warmth of the sun before saying our goodbyes and heading home.

After a weekend of unplugging and getting outdoors, I’m reminded that l feel more connected to nature and to this community of adventurous women who despite the weather and the cold temperatures dared to join us on the trail!

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