Kristin

We parked in P7 and went up to the peak on the Terrace pond north trail. There were a ton of super tiny frogs hopping around in the lower shaded sections of the trail. We did a short and very overgrown bushwhack to the true summit which had an official metal “US Coast and Geodetic Survey” marker. (Pictured is me sitting with the marker) Then we hiked around Terrace Pond and down the way we came up. It was a very pretty hike, pond, and forest and the floating bridge and ladder were neat. We only found one tick as opposed to the 20 we found two weeks ago at Big Beech Mountain. Also thank you to Doc for the encouraging words after my Big Beech Mountain hike which was my first “bagged peak”!

We parked at the Longpond Museum and only saw two other people on the Stirling Trail up to Big Beech mountain. The trail was well marked but muddy in spots and a bit overgrown. The viewpoint to the south was nice but we failed to find the other viewpoint.

Around the summit I climbed to the top of what appeared to be the tallest rock pile around but I did not know there was a small cairn somewhere very nearby marking the “true summit”. I kinda feel like I didn’t actually make it since I didn’t see this marking but all of this is just for fun anyway. I will be sure to check the previous summit comments before I go to the next mountain to see if there is some sort of marking to look for on the summit.

Then we proceeded to take a picture over the state line and go back the way we came. My hiking partner and I flicked about 20 ticks off of our legs and arms between the two of us and we were wearing bug spray. So far we have pulled 7 off of our poor dog and found a few that hitchhiked into the house on our gear. I’ve never encountered ticks like this on any other hike so I’d recommend taking every precaution, wearing bug spray, and going in the cooler months. It definitely gave me to creeps because I hate ticks but I still really enjoyed this hike.