I received this text message this morning, from Keychain:
"@L.namahkanta. snow on k. closed for past 2 days says rumor!"
Translated, this means “I am at Lake Namahkanta. There is snow on Katahdin, and supposedly the mountain has been closed for the past 2 days.”
I sent him a message back to see when he thought he’d summit given the weather. Luckily, I got a call back! Apparently Zen got some kind of floatplane ride (?!) and saw a lot of snow on the mountain, and rumors from ahead of them indicate that people were stacking up at the park, waiting to summit. It did snow on them a few nights ago, but today is a gorgeous day in Maine, and they figure the folks that have been waiting to hike up will likely go today, leaving less of a crowd for them, and they still plan to summit on Wednesday.
4 comments:
Hi Elizabeth, Don't know if my previous comment got to you or just disappeared into the ozone. At the risk of redundancy here's the gist. I'm the proud father of NoAmp (one of the "crew" that's been hiking off and on with Keychain and Zen for some time). I appreciate your update posted today as my wife and I are also planning to arrive at Katahdin by Wednesday afternoon to pick up NoAmp and Spidey (and possible give rides as needed to Cookie Monster, Thinker and his girlfriend Vanessa who joined the group in Monson).
I just called the Baxter State Park (207-723-5140) and learned the following as of Monday, Oct. 6, 12:40 PM):
- The trail to the summit remained closed today.
- Decision to re-open it tomorrow (Tuesday) will be made by Park Superintendent and/or Head Ranger first thing in the morning.
- Call the phone number above on Tuesday after 8:15 AM to learn the trail status for the day
- The woman I spoke with thought there were between 30 and 50 NOBOs piled up in the campgrounds waiting for the trail to re-open. She didn't know whether the 'base camp' campgrounds might be completely full by Tuesday night if the trail did not reopen
- The weather up there is beautiful today which should melt some snow, but the trail re-opening is still an "executive" decision made on a day-to-day basis.
Please relay this info to Keychain, et. al. if you manage to again make contact in the next 36 hours.
Questions or comments? daduse@gmail.com
BTW, I'm a huge fan of Keychain's blog (and your contributions as well).
Sincerely,
David Dusenbury
David - I will certainly pass on the info - thanks so much!! I sent you an email about the trip as well... see you soon!
elizabeth
VAchon here,
I too relish the Elizabeth/Keychain blog. I'm keeping up via the blog. Glad I'm home tho! Please give my profound congratulations to all the hikers of the Keychain connection when you see them. And huggs to you for all you've done to further a hike/dream! GO PHILLIES!!!!!!!!
WOW....SNOW !!!!!.....Hope everything works out OK !!!!.....Thinking of you both....Drive Carefully...Mom
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