Moose

On the drive into the park, just a little further away than in 2023, I came upon a cow moose just hanging out in the road. Getting a good picture was impossible due to the direction of the sun, the poor state of my windshield, and the fact that it ran away away as soon as I started inching the car forward from here (I was stopped when taking this picture):

Trout Brook Campground

I arrived at park at about 7:30pm on Saturday and as usual spent the night at Trout Brook Campground, a roadside campground in the park. None of the campsites there are very private, but the one I had this night was even less so (that is the road that goes through the campground in the foreground). But that is OK, this is just the place to spend one night so I can get an earlier start on the real adventure!

I have learned to bring extra gear for the first night at the campground. For example, the tent pictured here is my two-person tent, but since I’m by myself I had my one-person tent in my backpack and ready to go. The next morning, I can just throw it in the car without properly packing it up, grab my pack, and go.

Hiking In

I set off on the Fowler Brook Trail at about 9:00am Sunday.

Lower Fowler Pond

I stopped for a snack at the canoe rental site on Lower Fowler Pond, and observed the biggest pollywogs and leach that I have every seen.

This pollywog is more than 6” long:

This leach of almost 6” long:

Encountering a Black Bear

Ever since I started backpacking, seeing a moose and a black bear in the wild on a hiking, canoeing, or kayaking trip, have been major bucket list items for me. I always figured I’d see moose now and then but might never see a black bear. (At least in places where black bears are not habituated to people, they stay far away.)

Well, as of this weekend I still have not encountered a moose, but I have encountered a black bear! I came around a corner in the trail, and there it was about 150 feet away:

It went about how black bear sightings usually do - I saw it, made some noise, and it went in the other direction.

But they sure are a lot more intimidating when you are about two miles from the nearest other person and three miles from the nearest vehicle, than they are when you see them on YouTube! It was also impressive how quiet it was when it went away - it was making some noise moving around when I first saw it, but was totally silent after it saw me.

The bear had been on the trail in the direction I was heading, and it headed off in roughly the same direction the trail did, so I stayed in that place for 10 minutes or so to give it a head start. I was definitely on alert looking for it, but never saw or heard another sign of it. And thanks to the adrenaline the last mile of the trail went by pretty quickly.

Middle Fowler Pond

As always the first sight of Middle Fowler Pond from this direction is quite something:

Here’s the Middle Fowler Pond North tent site with the lake in the background and my stuff set up:

I usually do not sleep very well on these trips, and at first I thought after seeing the bear I might be up all night worrying that it might still be nearby. Ironically, for the two remaining nights I slept better than I ever have while camping.

I wasn’t sure how the fishing would be this time of year since I’ve only been to this lake in the fall before. Turns out it doesn’t slow down much in July. After camp was set up and I’d had a break, I set out fishing at about 6:00pm and caught 9 trout in two hours - 6 in about 30 minutes with spinning reel, and 3 in about 90 minutes fly fishing. This is only the second time I’ve ever really been fly fishing, and the one thing I forgot on this trip was a fly fishing book I had planned to bring, so I was just figuring it out as I went. Since I was tired, and the fishing was productive enough that I felt confident I would catch more tomorrow, I decided not to keep any to eat the first night.

The next day I had the option of hiking up Barrell Ridge, but I decided to save my leg for a better hike tomorrow because I wasn’t confident I could do both. In the meantime, even though Middle Fowler is a very clear lake:

Even though Middle Fowler is a very clear lake, the water tastes pretty bad, even for a lake. Obviously I filter it to make it safe to drink, but safe does not necessarily mean good-tasting. The Sawyer Squeeze I use does not remove whatever it is that makes lake water taste like lake water. So I did hike about 1/4 mile up the trail towards Barrell Ridge to find a stream I remember from last time I was here to get as much water as I could. This was a good idea, that lake water taste gets tiring pretty quickly.

After this I thought I might see if I could walk along Fowler Brook to Little Fowler Pond, but the brook was covered on both sides by 50 feet or more of these bushes that are way too thick to walk through without cutting a path:

I didn’t know if Little Fowler would be inaccessible too, so instead of trying to find a way around I decided to do some more fishing on Middle Fowler earlier than planned. Even though at about noon the fish weren’t as active I was surprised to catch a few in just an hour or so, and decided to cook one of them for lunch. I got a new backpacking stove (Soto Windmaster) this year and decided to cook on that instead of a camp fire to see what it was like (so far I’ve only used to boil water for dehydrating). Though the flame on the stove is adjustable, it doesn’t really go low enough for frying on, but I found that by leaving the pan on the stove for a minute, then holding it away from the flame for a minute, etc, I cooked the fish nicely with lightly crispy skin. Even though it was just trout, clarified butter, and salt, it was amazing! It was also nice to not have to do the dishes in the dark.

I messed up the skin a little bit the first two times I flipped it, but after that I managed to stop making it worse.

Even though I didn’t cook over a camp fire, I did decide to have a fire before bed that night:

Hiking Out

Tuesday, it was time to pack up and hike out. I can get everything except my two fishing rods and net inside the backpack. In future backpacking trips, I will probably not bring my fly fishing gear or the net because now that I feel like I’m starting to get the hang of fly fishing, but am still so much better with a spinning real, they are not worth the weight.

Trout Brook Mountain

I left fairly early so I would have time for hiking Trout Brook Mountain from a trailhead just a little ways from the car. It’s the only mountain in the area I have not yet hiked, and the fact that I could leave all the backpacking gear in the car and just take what I needed for this hike also made it attractive for saving my leg as much as possible.

Though in hindsight, my leg was fine the next day and I could have done both this hike and the day hike of Barrell Ridge yesterday without major issues. I was originally thinking I might be able to go the long way around the Five Ponds trail to get to the campsite, do a day hike of Barrell Ridge, then hike up either Trout Brook Mountain, Horse Mountain, or both, on the way back out. I’m now sure I could do this if fully healthy, but this would have made for a very long hike out with my full backpacking gear, and I am glad I did not attempt it.

The trail up is pretty rugged, steep with lots of roots and rocks, but not unmanageable at just a little over 1.5 miles and 1,000 feet of elevation gain. It feels like you’re deep in the woods until right near the top when you get your first views:

The lake on the far left is Billfish Pond, and the one on the far right is Lower Fowler Pond. Just barely visible in the middle is Long Pond. Behind it is Billfish Mountain, and behind that is Middle Fowler Pond.

This trail continues along a ridge for a few hundred yards before it goes back into the woods:

Here’s Long Pond again from a slightly better angle:

I couldn’t read much of this sign in person either:

Heading down the other side you briefly get a view of parts Grand Lake Matagamon:

There are signs of lots of moose activity everywhere along the trail, but I didn’t see any actual moose. Other than that, it was an uneventful hike and then drive home.

Miscellaneous Notes

I tried treating my clothes with Permethrin for the first time. It seemed to do nothing (I watched mosquitoes land on my clothes for 10 seconds then fly away without issue). I thought I followed the instructions but they were vague, so I am going to try a heavier spray before I decide if it’s worth the time.

I also wore waterproof hiking shoes for the first time in hot weather (Xero Shoes Mesa Trail WP) because the trails in the area were very muddy in the past. However given the heat and how dry it has been lately, this was a bad idea. The waterproofing is effective, but that was more than made up for by the reduced breathability and the sweating that caused. This is an inevitable part of waterproofing, and this is a great shoe when I actually want that, but I will stick to my much more breathable Xero Scramblers when it’s this hot and it hasn’t been unusually rainy.

Here was my food for the trip. I didn’t make very much myself this time. The breakfasts were bland, otherwise the food I ate was very good (the Mountain House was extra I did not have to touch). The one disappointment was my storage for nut butter and honey (for PB&J-style tortillas for lunch) both leaked, making a mess inside the bag containing them. Since I caught that fish for lunch I didn’t need it, so I got lucky and didn’t have to deal with it. I need to find a new solution to this since this is a nice way to break up the pre-packed dehydrated meals without long prep times, and extra ingredients can be used for other things too.

Miscellaneous Photos

The first view you get of the lake as you hike in, with Bald Mountain in the background:

Left to right those peaks are Bald Mountain, The Traveler (barely visible), North Traveler Mountain, and Barrell Ridge:

This is a very peaceful, beautiful place, especially when the wind is not disturbing the water:

And here are a views as it gets dark:

And when Night Sight on my phone really starts to kick in, the pictures suddenly look lighter:

And here’s one peek of Katahdin, taken from the Katahdin Scenic Outlook on Route 11 in Patten on the drive home:

The idea was to arrive at Trout Brook Campground Friday in the early afternoon, rent a canoe and spend the first night at Togue Ledge campsite, the closest camp site. Then Saturday morning we could head about 4.5 miles further down the lake to Pine Point, and hopefully have time to explore down the lake to Webster Brook and the East Branch of the Penobscot River. Sunday we’d paddle the 4.5 miles back, maybe checking out the part of the lake around Hay Brook along the way if we felt up to it.

Unfortunately at the last minute the forecast took a turn for the worse, with rain and wind when we got there, and a thunderstorm possible on the morning of our last day. I felt we’d be OK as long as things didn’t get worse. In the past I would not have had any way to get an updated forecast. There’s no cell coverage in the park, so I might have cancelled the whole trip with that much uncertainty, but last year I got a Garmin inReach Mini 2 on sale. I got the minimal model because I really only wanted it for the emergency SOS feature, but I can also use it to get detailed weather forecasts via satellite, so we could always check it and decide whether to leave a day early during the trip.

Togue Ledge

We arrived at the park at about 2:00, and of course it started pouring while we were loading up the canoe, for just long enough to get us soaked. It lightened up while we paddled, but the wind (10 MPH steady from the NW with 25 MPH gusts) still made it challenging, and I never put down the paddle to take pictures. The wind reminded me very much of our last trip to Grand Lake Matagamon, which also had challenging wind, and I didn’t take many pictures then either.

But once we got there I took this picture standing on the point looking back at the campsite:

Here is what the lake looked like:

The next day the weather was a little better:

With all the rain I learned a few ways that I can improve the waterproofing of our equipment! In particular the supposedly waterproof compression bags that contain our summer sleeping bags are definitely not waterproof, and I threw a few things in my bag at the last minute that I completely failed to protect from water. Fortunately it mostly stopped raining after we got there, and the wind helped everything important dry relatively quickly, and the truly waterlogged items were not vital.

Before we left the campsite we were visited by this guy:

This is a snapping turtle about 16” long. It was so still we thought it might be dead, but as soon as we left the area it disappeared. Based on the fresh piles of dirt behind its rear legs I think it may have been looking for a place to lay eggs. (We didn’t disturb it on purpose, but it was right next to the trail down to the water and I didn’t see it until I was almost right next to it.)

And here’s the last view of the camp site as we paddled away:

Overall Togue Ledge is an OK but not great campsite - there is no good place to land the canoe (especially in the wind) and it was very hard to find a place to hang our food. On the other hand, the tent site is in a nice spot, close to the water but with just enough trees to provide significant protection from the wind.

Heading to Pine Point

The next morning we slept in a bit, then packed up and headed up the lake towards the Pine Point campsite. The weather was beautiful, but it was still windy enough to make paddling challenging. For about half the trip we were heading directly into what I’d estimate were 5-10 MPH steady wind with (fortunately infrequent) 20 MPH gusts.

We found a nice spot about halfway to stop for a lunch break. Here’s the view of the lake from there:

The second half of this paddle was more protected from the wind and went by much faster than the first half.

Second Lake Campsite

About 3/4 of the way to Pine Point we passed Second Lake Campsite. This looks like an interesting site with a little beach perfect for landing the canoe and some rocky areas that look great for swimming:

Sandy Saw Beach?

Shortly after passing the Second Lake campsite we also passed a series of 8-10 small sandy beaches similar to the one pictured below. One of them had a very old faded sign that said “Sandy Saw Beach”. Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of that sign but here is one of the beaches nearby:

Nearby there’s a cool dead tree, so old it has split in two, but still clinging to a boulder:

Pine Point

The Pine Point campsite is another great looking site with a decent sized sandy beach to land the canoe at and some other rocky spots that looked good for swimming around. However with fewer trees between the site and the water, it didn’t feel quite as private as some others and I wonder how exposed it is to wind.

Sometime while paddling we realized we could see Katahdin in the distance! From the other parts of the lake it is either blocked by trees or the nearby mountains, but we had travelled far enough to significantly change our perspective of the rest of the park!

Unfortunately I didn’t think to get a pictures of that either, but below you can see the view from the campsite with the mountains looking different in the background:

And looking further down the lake towards the northwest tip where Webster Brook and the East Branch of the Penobscot River enter:

Butterflies

After we got out of the canoe and started checking out the site, we realized there were 15-20 of these interesting butterflies hanging out around camp, flying around and sunning themselves. I would look these up later, they are White Admiral butterflies (Limenitis arthemis).

Heading Home Early

While resting after our long paddle I checked Sunday’s weather forecast and unfortunately, it wasn’t good news. The thunderstorm prediction had been changed from just in the morning to any time from 10am - 4pm and while the wind was going to be variable all day, it would be mostly in directions that require a significant amount of paddling against it again. Unfortunately Garmin doesn’t give any forecast of gusts, but with storms possible I had to assume they’d be bad.

So our choices were to either head home now (adding an another day’s worth of paddling to today’s itinerary), or wait until tomorrow and risk one of the following happening:

1. Decide to wait out the storms that are supposed to end at 4:00pm, only to have them last much longer and we get stuck for another night. I do bring enough extra food for just this sort of scenario, but I’m sure this would have made people back home (and potentially park staff) worried!
2. Wait for a break in the storms during the day, only to have to battle unpredictable winds and maybe have to stop at a random point and huddle in the trees to wait out a storm that overtook us.

In the end it just seemed foolish to take a risk that was easily preventable, and we decided to head home immediately to get back before dark. Fortunately we had not unpacked too much, so we had a snack and headed out at about 5:30pm.

By this time the wind had started to calm but we still had a helpful tail wind for some of the paddle back. I estimated it to be a 2 - 2.5 hour trip, which should mean getting back 30 - 60 minutes before dark, but we’d never paddled this far in one day before and were on an new part of the lake to us, so I was feeling a bit anxious about getting back before dark at first.

About half way back it was obvious we would easily be back an hour before dark, the wind had died down completely, and the weather overall was beautiful. This was the most relaxing and enjoyable paddle we’ve had in this area, especially paddling back up a glass-smooth Trout Brook. During this part Fiona and I agreed we’d definitely be coming back as soon as we can to explore more of the lake!

I also wanted to try fly fishing this year. The original motivation for this was that I thought I was going to spend at least one night at Lower Fowler Pond, which is fly-fishing only, and learning the new skill seemed interesting. I got an inexpensive but reasonably well-reviewed Sougayilang set, and took it out once to the St George River in the spring (didn’t catch anything), fully intending to get more practice over the summer. I ended up not spending any time on Lower Fowler this time, but brought the fly fishing gear in addition to my usual fishing gear so I could get some more time trying it out.

Hike In

The hike in and out was on Fowler Brook Trail. This was a very nice trail, a lot less muddy than the Five Ponds Loop - not just because it was drier this year, but there only a few small spots that looked like they got very muddy with rain. The beginning of the trail is very well worn but the further you go, the more remote if feels.

The trail allows several nice views of Fowler Brook and Lower Fowler Pond along the way:

Middle Fowler Pond

If I hiked all the way to my campsite, I would have walked almost right past the canoe storage area about a half a mile before my campsite, so instead I got the canoe on the way and paddled the last half mile. The campsites are made to be found from the trail and they’re not very obvious from the water, but I was able to find it without too much trouble (OpenStreetMaps has very accurate maps of the trails and campsites that you can use offline, I use the app called OsmAnd for this. It’s also helpful for navigating to Baxter State Park since Google Maps offline abilities stink now (it used to let you select a route to download for offline use, now it tries to be smart about what maps you need offline often fails at it)).

I was glad I got their earlier than I would have if I’d driven up that morning, because right after I got camp set up there was a brief downpour! I spent an hour or so hanging out in the tent until it stopped raining, and then went out fishing.

The one downside to Middle Fowler Pond is that even filtered so it’s safe to drink, the water tastes terrible (worse than any other lake I’ve stayed one). The outlet stream is not any better, but I eventually figured out that there are streams near this campsite that that taste a lot better.

Here’s what the lake looks like from the north end where I picked up the canoe:

Here’s what it looks like from the campsite on the south end:

And here’s a really nice shot I got while fishing that first evening:

And here’s a photo that shows how creepy these woods are at night (this is really what it looked like walking the 200 feet or so to where I hung my food to keep it away from critters (and bears)):

Wildlife

Moose calls

Shortly after I got camp set up on Friday and went out fishing, probably around 5:00pm or so, I started to get serenaded by a lonely-sounding cow moose! She’d make these calls every 5-10 minutes for 4 or 5 hours. I managed to record a couple of them. The sound was coming from the woods right across from my campsite. In the first 23 seconds of this video I think she was at the water because I could hear her splashing, but unfortunately it was pitch black so I could not see her.

This is audio only because most of it was recorded in the dark anyway. You might have to turn your volume up to hear it, this was the best I could do:

Beaver

While I was hearing the moose and trying to fish, I was also getting harassed by a beaver! I’m not sure why, I was pretty far from the beaver’s lodge and mostly just drifting, but the beaver kept coming up from under water within 20-50 feet from me, swimming for 10 seconds then slapping its tail and going back under, only to come up somewhere else and do it again. When I realized it was being so predictable I managed to get it on video once. I think it did this 6-8 times:

One cool thing you cannot hear in that video is that it’s tail slaps were loud enough to echo off Billfish Mountain, which sounded pretty cool.

Here is its lodge I think (this was from the paddle home while I was following that shore, but I was at least 300-500 feet from it when the beaver was mad at me:

Fishing

The fishing on Middle Fowler was similar to how I remembered it last year, on the south end of the lake there were all kinds of rises in the area of the two inlet streams all day, but even more when it starts to get dark. I caught a few of these very light colored fish that I thought might be Landlocked Salmon at first (even though I didn’t think there were any in this lake), but looking at the pictures now I think they are just light-colored Brook Trout? I didn’t keep any to eat on Friday because it was getting late and it had just poured rained so getting the fire going would have been annoying. I also tried a few casts with the fly rod but didn’t catch anything. I’m still not very good at casting a fly rod and I’m not sure I never had a good enough cast that it didn’t immediately scare everything away that evening.

After hiking back from Barrell Ridge, I took the canoe out for more fishing. I decided that since I had succesfully caught a few on my regular rod, this time I’d focus on the fly rod. After a few tries I finally got a really smooth cast that went where I was aiming and I said out loud, “hey that was pretty good”, and within 5 seconds I’d hooked one, then landed it! This is my first fish every caught while fly fishing:

I continued to fish until maybe 4pm when I decided it would be nice if I was going to eat any, to get them cooked and cleaned up before dark, so I kept a decent sized one and had it for a pre-dinner snack. I did not take any pictures of this, except this one where the fish has been cleaned and is in the pan you can barely see in front of the fire:

Barrell Ridge

My optional planned activity for this trip was a hike up to Barrell Ridge. It’s not a long hike at 1.4 miles or so, but was very steep at 1,100 feet of elevation gain. I stopped at one of the inlet streams that the trail crosses over to filter water on both the way up and down, which tasted a lot better than the lake water.

The main challenge of this trail is just seeing it. From the stream mentioned above to about half way up, the trail is not very well marked and it doesn’t look heavily traveled. I found myself stopping every 5 minutes or so and carefully looking around to make sure that I was definitely following the trail. There were at least a half dozen times when I had to stop, look around, and couldn’t see any trail markers in either direction, so I’d pick out some landmarks to make sure I could backtrack if necessary and carefully make my way forward until finally seeing a trial marker a few hundred yards later so I knew I was still on the trail. The trail was also pretty wet from earlier rain which made it slippery in some places, and with it being so little traveled there are a lot of places with small bushes crowding the trail, getting my legs wet when I pushed through them. The last 1/3 of a mile is along bare ledge which was very steep but at least there it was dry and good footing.

Here’s an example (heading back out) of what I mean. In this picture there’s an obvious trail marker but they were few and far between in some places:

Some of the trail markers on not very visible either, I don’t think they redo them on this trail very often. Can you see the one in this picture?

Over all it was a very pleasant hike and even though this is not the tallest peak in the area, the view at the top was quite worth it (even though pictures never do it justice of course):

This is North Traveler Mountain partially obscured by clouds, about 300 feet higher up than Barrell Ridge:

From a slightly different angle, North Traveler Mountain on the right, The Traveler mostly obscured behind it, and Bald Mountain on the left. In the distance I believe are Lunksoos and Deasey Mountains among others in the Katahdin Woods and Waterways National Monument:

In this picture you see Billfish mountain in the foreground (that cliff mostly blocked by trees is the same one that’s visible right across Middle Fowler Pond from my campsite), and in the background I think are Hay Brook Mountain and Roberts Mountain (not sure if they’re significant anyway, I just like to try to figure these things out):

Another view over Billfish where you can see a part of Grand Lake Matagamon. I’m not sure what mountains are in the background, but they are somewhere northeast in Aroostook County I’m sure:

Not sure what is in the picture here, but this is looking pretty much straight north:

Food and Cooking

This year I brought more store-bought freeze-dried meals and didn’t make as many of my own dehydrated meals. In the picture above I have my food for Friday (except breakfast which I ate at the car) on the far right, and Sunday (except supper which I had on the road on the way home) on the far left.

For Friday I took tortillas, nut butter, and honey for lunch during the hike to avoid cooking before camp. This is a convenient combo and I always have a couple tortillas and some honey left over that I can add to other meals if I want. The Knorr rice and pasta side that I had for supper Friday was pretty bland, and I forgot that the bag they come in isn’t great for rehydrating so it was a bit of a pain to eat, but it got the job done. Following the package instructions about water resulted in it being a little too soupy, I think these things assume more evaporation if you’re cooking it on a stove.

For breakfast on Saturday I had my usual oatmeal mixture, made with some ghee (clarified butter that is shelf-stable for quite a bit longer than regular butter), plus that container has plenty more ghee that I can use for cooking over the fire when I want. That other little container is salt for cooking over the fire with. For lunch I dehydrated one spaghetti and meatballs meal by cutting up the meatballs into small bits, and the pasta was dehydrated after cooking it because it rehydrates better that way, and I broke it into smaller bits to make it easier to eat with a spoon. Overall this came out very good, though the tomato sauce lost a lot of its brightness and did take a step back in flavor when rehydrating (it was a very good sauce that I made from my garden tomatoes, so it was still pretty good). I brought this and my cook set up to Barrell Ridge, so this was the meal I had while enjoying the view:

For supper on Saturday I had the Mountain House Chicken Fried Rice, which was also very bland.

For breakfast Sunday I had the Good To-Go Mushroom Risotto, which is one of my favorite dehydrated meals of all time. The Good To-Go Cucumber Chaat Salad was one I’d never hard before, it is cold-soaked for just 5 minutes and it’s ready to eat, which made it perfect for having while hiking out. This was pretty good, even though the vegetables was a lot different than they would be fresh, and they aren’t very pretty, the texture still worked pretty well and it tasted good. This has a little heat to it even though the package does not indicate that it is spicy that I could see (mild, but definitely some spice there). Also it was more filling than something that has cucumber as the headline ingredient might imply. This was quite good for lunch overall.

And of course I had about 100g per day of peanut M&Ms. Dark chocolate peanut M&Ms are the best but I couldn’t find them this year.

I think this is probably going to be the last trip where I use these alcohol stoves that I made from Fancy Feast cat food cans. I really liked making and experimenting with them and never had any major issues with them, but they take just a little bit more planning and preparation than a canister stove, and they are a little more unpredictable being much more affected by the wind, ambient temperature, and the ground they are sitting on. The normal procedure for lighting the alcohol stove is to fill it with fuel, light it, and wait for a minute or three for it to warm up and really get going before putting the pot of water on. Lighting it can be a little difficult when you don’t have it totally full of fuel when you just want to heat a little water for coffee or something. In my backward tests and on most other trips I can typically go from dead cold to boiling one cup of water in under 10 minutes, and boiling 2 cups in just over 15. This is a lot slower than a canister stove but not enough to bother me, but for some reason on this trip it took way longer than normal to warm up (5+ minutes), and then was even slower to bring water to the boil. I’m guessing this is because it was cold and very wet. On top of this the fuel is easier to spill and a little harder to pack, and on this trip I stepped on the stove while I left it out to cool, which took a few minutes to repair. So even though I’ve cooked dozens of meals on these, and I will miss the “uniqueness” of these stoves, I think I am going to be upgrading to a good canister stove in the near future.

Below is the complete cook kit, minus the fuel which I kept in a 20oz soda bottle. For a trip this length that is maybe 50% more than I actually need, but it is good to have extra in case something spills. Pictured below in the green container is my instant coffee, so I can have coffee whenever I want just by grabbing this kit and the fuel. I filled up this 2oz container which was about twice as much as I really needed for this trip. This whole set does pack down nicely with a collapsible cup and folding spoon!

Gear

I didn’t do anything usual for gear, and I pack my bag in a pretty typical way for backpacking and strap my fishing stuff to the outside of the bag. I didn’t realize how bulky the case for my fly rod is until I strapped on the bag, I think I am going to have to find something more compact, but unlike my spinning rod I think the fly rod is too delicate to just strap on without some kind of case.

This is my second trip with this tent, but the first where I got any rain, and it held up well. It is a Featherstone Backbone 1P, a trekking pole tent, which means it uses your trekking poles instead of tent poles. This makes it a lot lighter and smaller, but also a little more challenging to set up. This is a one person tent, and with a regular 20x72” rectangle sleeping pad you’re only left with a couple inches on either side and less than a foot lengthwise, but there are two decent sized vestibules and two doors. It is not totally double-walled, and while condensation buildup doesn’t seem to be worse than a fully double-walled tent, it is possible to kick the roof panel with your feet and get your feet wet. There is a tie-out point you can use to raise the end and help with this a little bit, and if I sleep closer to the wall on the head end that helps too. Overall the weight reduction of this minimalist tent is totally worth it, though it might be a tough sell for someone bigger or taller (I’m 5’6”).

Compared to my other backpacking tent it is about half the size and weight. My other tent is a Featherstone UL Peridot 2P, which is just about the smallest and lightest 2 person tent with poles you can get without spending 4x the money:

I also got a new sleeping pad for this trip, a Nemo Tensor All-Season. Last year in Baxter State Park at this time, and when I camped out in northern Maine in April to see the eclipse, my cheap sleeping pad was definitely the weak link in terms of keeping warm, and I find that a comfortable pad makes a pretty big different to how I sleep, so I decided it was worth investing in a good comfortable and warm one and it is now the most expensive piece of gear I own (even so I never sleep very well out in the woods with nothing put a very thing piece of fabric between you and whatever is out there in the night). The sleeping bag is a Hyke and Byke Katahdin 0 degree bag, which I bought for the eclipse and was just right for 20-degree windy weather we got that day, but on this trip turned out to be way warmer than necessary (I don’t think it ever got below 40 at this time and there was no wind at all). Fortunately by wearing few clothes and leaving the bag unzipped, I was not too hot.

The funny thing about using a trekking pole tent is that I wanted to use the trekking poles on my hike to Barrell Ridge, which meant leaving the tent seemingly deflated. Fortunately it is pretty easy to get the poles in and out. I put all my gear in the tent and closed it up first because it seemed like rain was possible.

Another new thing was this backpack, which folds down very small so I could bring it to use on my day hike up Barrell Ridge. I think someone gave this to either me or Fiona as a gift, but I can’t remember who, so if it was you thanks! It is definitely bare-bones (no pockets, no padding in the shoulder straps, but it is surprisingly comfortable for what it is, and it’s nice that it takes up so little space when not in use:

This picture actually makes it look a little bigger than it really is when packed down. It’s impressively compact.

Hike Out

The hike out and drive home were not very eventful. Here’s one last picture of the canoe after I put it away and locked it back up. There are normally three canoes stored here, but four other guys took the other two just a few minutes before I got here. Lifejackets are in the wooden cabinet, and the paddles are leaning up against the tree. The canoes are chained and padlocked to nearby trees, you get the key from the attendant at the Matagamon Gate and pay $1/hour or $8/day.

More Pictures

Here is a grouse showing up at Trout Brook Farm Campground first thing Friday morning:

Trails Between Lower Fowler, Middle Fowler, and Fowler Brook

Middle Fowler Pond

Middle Fowler Pond South Campsite

These are all either taken of or from the Middle Fowler South campsite where I stayed.

Barrell Ridge

These are taken from the trail to/from Barrell Ridge or the from the top. I really like the view from the top so there are a lot of pictures from up there:

This sign post may have broken but someone laid the signs out so they still pointed in the right directions:

Lower Fowler Pond

These were taken as I hiked past Lower Fowler Pond on Friday and Sunday:

The trip would involve three nights camping alone at two isolated sites in the deep woods of Baxter State Park, 9.6 miles of hiking to/from camp sites, 4.5 miles of hiking Horse Mountain just for the view, and as much paddling as I wanted to do to fish and explore two different ponds (I tracked it with GPS, I ended up paddling over 10 miles).

Once again the quality of my photos is crap because the regular lens on my phone is broken, so I have to use the wide angle lens for everything. But photos really aren’t the point of this kind of thing for me.

Hiking In

The first destination was Billfish pond. I’d be staying there Sunday and Monday nights.

I left the car at the trailhead across the road from Trout Brook Farm Campground at about 1:30pm on Sunday the 24th. The hike in was about 2.6 miles, and is a part of the Five Ponds Trail that Fiona and I hiked last year on our way out of the park. Last year we encountered lots of mud, and as expected after this rainy summer there was lots more. I’ve read that lots of people avoid this trail in the spring due to the mud, I wish I knew if in the spring it is typically any better or worse than it is now after this summer of crazy rain. Yes, this picture is of the trail, not a pond off to the side:

This trial is well marked but it is obviously not traveled as much as trails in say Camden Hills State Park, so even though there is not much elevation change it is still a difficult trail. This is a good thing if like me your goal is to get away for a while!

It’s hard to get good pictures of this, but one of the interesting things about this part of the trail is how dark it is early in the afternoon. This trail goes around Trout Brook Mountain and this section is to the north of it, so in the mid afternoon the sun goes behind the mountain and the woods get as dark as late evening, even though the sky is very bright. In this picture you can sort of see that the trail gets very dark in the distance even thought the treetops are still in the sun (it was more striking about 15 minutes after this picture was taken but none of those pictures came out very good):

The campsite is a little ways away from the water, close enough to see but far enough away that it does just feel like a campsite in the woods not quite “on the water” like the others I’ve stayed at in Baxter State Park. I think the wood planks there are an old tent platform, but it’s rickety and uneven and not level so my tent went on the ground instead. The bucket was already there, not sure what it’s for:

Billfish Pond

Billfish pond is in a beautiful spot, with Horse Mountain, Trout Brook Mountain, and Billfish Mountain on three sides. The water in this lake is the clearest I have ever seen in Maine, you can see clearly 15 or 20 feet deep when the light is right. That plus all the mountains makes this almost feel like a Rocky Mountain lake I’ve seen in YouTube videos.

Near shore it gets deep very slowly, with sudden very steep drop offs everywhere. In this picture you can see how fast it drops off, it’s about 5 feet deep on the left side and drops off so deep you can’t see bottom on the right side of the picture, in a distance of less than 10 feet. It changes the color of the water in interesting ways, and because it is so clear you can see these color differences from hundreds of yards away.

The view from the water towards the camp site, that’s Billfish Mountain in the background:

Another picture of Billfish Mountain:

Here’s Horse Mountain from out on the lake:

Later on when the wind had completely died, here’s looking back toward the camp site with Trout Brook Mountain in the background:

And here’s Billfish Mountain again on the lake when it’s calm in the evening:

Wildlife

As I mentioned this pond is surrounded by mountains, and this results in some crazy echoes! The loons, which are some of my favorite animals to listen to anyway, sounded amazing. It was hard to catch in a recording, and this does not do it justice but it does give you the idea:

Noises in the night

All around the tent site, shortly after dark, I’d hear chattering and chirping in the trees. Merlin, the birding app by the Cornell Ornithology Lab (who know what they’re doing), could not identify it as a bird. In my experience the app is usually pretty good. So I’m not sure what was making this noise. It wasn’t a disturbing noise or anything, but I am curious to figure out what it is!

Moose

About 1/10th of a mile or so from Billfish Pond on the hike in, I came around a corner on the trail and surprised something huge that went crashing through the bushes away from me. It couldn’t have been more that 100 feet away, but the woods were super thick and I couldn’t see it. I know that everything seems bigger when all you hear is something running through the woods, but even taking that into account it was huge. My first thought was bear, but after seeing all the signs later (lots of tracks and some scat), I am pretty sure it was a moose. Right after dark I even heard a moose bellow! It sounded like a combination of a cow moo and a growl. I only heard it once so didn’t get a chance to record it.

Beaver

The lake had all kinds of signs of beaver activity, though I never actually saw any beavers:

Here’s one of the paddles, I think those might beaver tooth marks in the handle!?

Fishing

The fishing on this lake is supposed to be great, but I didn’t have much luck. On the first evening I did catch a good sized brook trout, which I didn’t measure but must have been 14-15”. It was getting very late in the evening, almost dark, and I hadn’t set up camp yet so I decided not to keep it and didn’t think to get a picture. That would be the only fish I would catch on Billfish, even though I fished the whole lake multiple times over 2 days.

Other than catching one, I never saw any signs of large fish - no rises or anything. There were minnows 1-3” doing acrobatics to catch flies in the evenings, but only in very shallow water. I tried fishing around them, and in the deep water closest to them, but nothing. The fish I did catch was in the deep water on the side of the lake near camp, but not really that close to where the minnows were active. Though I did often let my lures sink as much as possible, I think that I probably should have been fishing even deeper than I was, maybe jigging with bait, but that is not the kind of fishing I am good at or enjoy.

Horse Mountain

I figured I wouldn’t want to fish all day Monday, so I planned a day hike up Horse Mountain to see the sights. Man were the views worth it!

This is looking East. One of the big mountains in the distance here is Mount Chase, not sure what all the surrounding ones are:

Looking South, the closest peaks are part of Billfish Mountain, Bald Mountain is right behind them, and the two peaks behind that are The Traveler and North Traveler Mountain. If they weren’t there you’d be able to see Katahdin but it’s far enough away that it is completely hidden.

I brought my stove and lunch along with me. It doesn’t look like much but it wasn’t very warm up there so man was this a satisfying meal (rehydrated homemade baked beans and coffee)!

Hiking to Middle Fowler Pond

I headed out to Middle Fowler Pond late Tuesday morning. The first half of the hike was continuing along the Five Ponds Trail, but instead of completing the loop I headed even further into the woods along the Lower Fowler and Middle Fowler Trails. Along the way I stopped for lunch on Long Pond, seeing some familiar sights from last year when Fiona and I camped there. This picture was taken at my lunch spot with a different side of Billfish Mountain in the background:

Long Pond and High Pond are very close together, separated by only 10-20 feet in some places, even though High Pond is about 10 feet higher elevation. This looks really cool in person, but is impossible to capture in pictures or videos, though of course I had to try again:

Fortunately on this hike the only muddy spot was a short distance at the beginning of the Lower Fowler Pond Trail around the stream that flows between Long Pond and Lower Fowler Pond. In this muddy area there were all kinds of signs of moose!

Middle Fowler Pond

The hike to Middle Fowler Pond from Billfish Pond was the longest hike of the trip, and I was definitely feeling it when I started to hear the waterfall at the outlet of Middle Fowler Pond. There was something about the combination of being so tired, seeing the waterfall, realizing that this was about 100 yards from the camp site, and then seeing how beautiful Middle Fowler Pond was, that made the end of this hike one of the most amazing experiences of the whole trip. Unfortunately I just can’t describe it any better than that, but this experience alone would have made the whole trip worth it.

The first view you get of Middle Fowler Pond from the trail, standing next to those waterfalls. That’s Bald Mountain in the background:

The view from the Middle Fowler North camp site, from left to right that’s Bald Mountain, The Traveler (barely visible), North Traveler Mountain, and Barrell Ridge:

The view of Billfish Mountain on the left and Bald Mountain on the right from the middle of the lake:

Billfish Mountain again, this is the opposite side of what you see from Billfish Pond:

Fishing

Finally, the first time I went out fishing on Middle Fowler, I caught some fish to cook for dinner! On the southeast end of the lake, I caught a fairly big Brook Trout! It was just starting to get dark (6:00pm or so), so I started to head back to camp, but after a few hundred yards I started to see rises all around me, so I threw my lure back in and caught another, slightly smaller but still worth keeping, brook trout! I decided to call it a night and as I paddled northwest back to camp I started to see rises all along the center of the lake.

The lake had several big boulders just sticking out of the water right out in the middle where it’s very deep, which was interesting. I bet there are fish hanging around these too!

I’m not sure what made this different from Billfish, even though the water was not quite as clear here it was also very deep, but I’m sure if I stayed out fishing it would have been action-packed. I definitely want to revisit this lake.

I decided to try filleting the bigger fish, and pan-frying the smaller one. I had some leftover tortillas from lunch, so I made some fish tacos out of the one I filleted. Even though they were a little plain being just fish and tortilla (and butter and salt), they were delicious! The other fish I ate straight out of the pan, and didn’t have to cook the food I brought for dinner.

Please forgive the terrible lighting, it was totally dark by the time I was done cooking:

This was taken from the camp site on Middle Fowler that night, though I can’t remember what mountain is silhouetted in the background:

Hiking Out

The hike back was backtracking along Middle and Lower Fowler trails, then completing the Five Ponds Trail Loop. It was relatively uneventful, though when I stopped for lunch I saw a bunch of trees that looked like this (some were still standing, some like this were fallen), are these bug tracks or bear claw marks? This wood was not rotten:

Foliage

There was lots of pretty foliage, but it was hard to get pictures with my broken phone camera. Here’s a few that came out OK.

Food

Another thing I experimented with was homemade food. Every meal I ate except two (and the snacks of dark chocolate peanut M&Ms) were homemade and dehydrated at home. The two that were not were one breakfast because I get tired of oatmeal and didn’t have any other breakfast ideas, and on the hike between camp sites I knew I wouldn’t want to bother cooking so I had ingredients for PB&J wraps. (Actually I use other nut butters because they come in convenient packaging, and honey because it’s shelf stable, but same idea as a PB&J). The two containers in the upper left are clarified butter to add to the oatmeal and for cooking fish (I actually brought two, not sure where the other one is in this picture), and salt also for cooking fish.

It doesn’t look like it but this is three days of meals plus snacks - dehydrating not only preserves the food, it also makes it take up a lot less space and weight!

Most of the meals were leftovers that I’d thrown in the freezer to eat later, but never did, so I threw them in the dehydrator. I recorded the weight before and after dehydrating so I’d know how much water is needed to rehydrate, and added instant potato flakes or instant rice if it seemed to need bulking up. Then I had to calculate how much water the potato or rice needed also. I shot for about 90g of dehydrated food for lunch and 150g for supper, based on store-bought meals I’ve had before, and this seemed to work out well.

I added a little potato to the baked beans and chili, and both came out excellent. In the suppers I made from leftovers, I added instant rice instead of potato. One dinner I made from scratch for this was egg noodles, dehydrated ground turkey, dehydrated frozen vegetables that needed to be used up, and a powdered pesto mix. In these meals the turkey and rice both did not rehydrate well - they were edible but just tough enough to be unpleasant. I used the pour-boiling-water-in-the-bag-and-wait method to rehydrate all the meals, and I’m not sure if that just wasn’t enough heat for these, or maybe I miscalculated the water. Also the egg noodles have so much air between them it was impossible to get them all submerged in the water so some did not rehydrate, but at least I know what happened there. In the end both of these meals were perfectly edible but I would not make them again. The pesto mix tastes good though it only vaguely tastes like pesto.

All in all it took some more time to prepare, but was an enjoyable challenge. I think the next challenge is figuring out how to do this with less disposable plastic.

Like last year we did some exploring in the canoe, swimming, and when Fiona wanted a break from outdoors stuff she’d read a book while I did some fishing. Like last year, I also did not make taking pictures a priority, which was good because my phone’s main camera lens is broken, so I can only take pictures with the wide angle lens, which means no pictures of anything not pretty close. I have also been using a GPS tracking app on my phone to create some interesting maps lately, though I forgot to use it about half the time on this trip.

We left on Wednesday August 30th after Fiona and I helped out with a school event welcoming new 6th graders to the middle school (she’s in 8th), and got to the park gate at about 8:00pm.

Paddling In

It was a little less than a mile down Trout Brook, then we followed the shore of the lake north and then west for a total of about a 3.5 mile paddle. Boy was it windy! The last forecast I saw was for a NW wind of 10 MPH with 20 MPH gusts. I knew it would be a challenging paddle if it got any worse than that, and that’s exactly what happened.

Here’s the start of the trip on Trout Brook:

When we were heading east on Trout Brook, the wind was at our backs and steady but not too gusty which gave us a chance to get used to how the Old Town Discovery 169 handled in the wind with us and our gear. As we approached the lake we could see the whitecaps we’d be paddling through from a distance, which was intimidating. On the lake the wind was whipping up much faster than predicted from NNW, which meant that for half the trip we were paddling directly into it.

The last third or so of the paddle was a little easier with the wind blowing from our right to our left, but I still had to keep pointed at least 15-20 degrees to the right of where we actually wanted to go!

Here is the only picture I took out on the lake, though I waited to take any pictures until a relatively calm moment:

Here’s the sign marking the camp site:

Just past the sign is this tiny beach, but it was very exposed to the wind and waves so we did not land there. This picture was taken on a different day when it was very calm:

And just to the right of that here’s the cove opening:

We were able to muscle through the wind using the small islands for cover when we wanted a break. We did not take breaks any longer or more frequently than we had to, and with hard paddling it still took a little over three hours to go the 3.5 miles. Here are some views of the lake from around our camp site that show the chop, though they really do not do it justice. Note that those waves you see are kicked up by the wind and are actually going against the current of Boody Brook:

The Camp Site

Once you enter the cove it widens significantly, and the camp site is on the point with the windy/choppy lake on one side and the calm cove on the other. On the calm side we found a better place to land the canoe:

There was a picnic table, fire ring, and plenty of choices for a tent site in the pine trees.

The tiny point, like most of the shoreline of the lake, had lots of ledge covered in scraggly pines, which really made it look like the coast. The forest in the immediate area was also mostly pines with no branches down low, which made it pleasant to walk around in but did not provide much protection from the wind. We found our favorite place to spend time was right around where we landed the canoe because the one large rocky outcropping at the end of the point created one small spot protected from the wind.

Here’s what the point looks like viewed from our tent site with the picnic table visible:

Here’s what the point looks like viewed from our picnic table, you can see the large ledge at the end of the point that created some shelter from wind:

Standing on that ledge, here’s what the lake looks like:

And here’s what the camp site looks like from the ledge:

And if you wanted to head inland, here’s what the forest looks like. This path peters out within a quarter mile or so:

In the evening the wind died down and we got to see this beautiful sunset:

Exploring

After the challening paddle it was still windy and we didn’t have much energy left for canoeing around the lake. We did take a few minutes to explore the cove, which is where water from Boody Brook flows into the lake. We could hear and almost see a beaver dam just a little further up stream, but back there the stream got too narrow for a canoe and the forest started to get dense, so we decided not to go any further. We would see the beaver when he swam out to check us out at our camp site later though!

The next day was calmer but still rather windy, and we were a little sore from paddling in. So we did not see as much of the lake as I would have liked, but did enjoy our nice quiet cove and explored one nearby island.

Swimming

The cove was weedy where we landed the canoe so we decided not to swim there and risk leaches, and the less weedy parts were rather windy. So we decided to paddle out to a nearby island, figuring it looked rocky (not weedy) and we could try swimming on the downwind side. We explored the tiny island, Fiona got to swim a bit, and we had lunch before heading back to the camp site.

When the wind finally calmed down, Fiona found a place at camp to swim too:

Fishing

After we set up camp Thursday, Fiona was content to read for a while so I decided to try out the fishing in our cove. Way in the cove there was an interesting looking pool that formed right before Boody Brook got too narrow for the canoe. In less than an hour I caught four or five small yellow perch, and two downright minuscule ones. None of them were worth keeping but it was fun.

On the way back to camp where the cove was widest I caught a two or three silvery fish I have not caught before, but using the Fishes of Maine book that I downloaded in advance I was able figure out that they are Fallfish, basically a big minnow that I’m assuming people normally don’t keep except for bait. But when I caught one almost a foot long I had see what it tasted like (I didn’t measure it but after cutting the head off I had to cut off about 2” off the tail to fit it in my 8” pan). I had brought some clarified butter and salt along with an 8” pan, and while the meat was pretty bland, the skin crisped up nicely and was quite good even though I didn’t scale it.

I can’t remember if this is the one I kept but I did take a quick picture of one of the Fallfish:

Late afternoon the following day after swimming, Fiona again wanted a reading break so I went out fishing in our cove again. I caught a couple more Fallfish in the wide part of the cove, then went back to where the Perch were. I caught one or two, then right where water was pouring in from the narrow part of Boody Brook, I caught a decent Brook Trout! It was getting late and I didn’t want to do so many dishes again, so I decided not to keep it.

Wildlife

There are a lot of loons on this lake, and they are surprisingly comfortable with people considering this lake gets relatively little human activity. They usually showed up in our cove a couple times per day, and sometimes when they showed up in pairs they’d hoot at each other like owls, which I don’t think I’ve heard before. Then of course, at night they’d go crazy:

Because of the issue with my phone camera, I never got any pictures or video of the loons worth sharing (other than the above audio).

Here is the beaver mentioned earlier. Again because of my phone camera I didn’t get any good photos of it, and in this video you can’t see the beaver very well, but you can (barely) hear it snorting at us as it swam back and forth in front of our camp site checking us out:

A Moose!

Finally, on the way home, we saw a moose! Just outside the park, as we were driving home we came around a corner and there was a big bull moose running away from us on the side of the road. It didn’t look like it was trying too hard, but it must have been going 20 MPH. After just a few seconds, it turned left and ran into the woods. I tried to get a few photos, and when I looked at them on my phone I thought I had caught it in one picture, but looking at it on a bigger screen I’m not so sure, so I won’t bother posting it. It was really neat to see one so up close! The park is wild enough that they are not used to humans, and so even though there are lots in the park you don’t see them much (same with black bears, which we have never seen).

Gear

Even though I knew we’d have capacity in a canoe for more gear than when we go backpacking, I decided to stick with just our regular backpacking equipment to simplify packing the canoe. Here’s some of the more interesting stuff.

The stoves we use are Fancy Feast cat food cans with holes punched in them with a regular paper hole punch. Fill it will denatured alcohol, and it can bring one cup of water to a boil in about 7-8 minutes wihtout a special pot stand. It will just barely hold enough alcohol to bring two cups of water to a boil. It’s super cheap, light, and I can bring exactly as much fuel as I want in whatever container I want. I find that two ounces of fuel per meal allows for cooking the meals, plus a couple cups of coffee and a comfortable safety margin. I cut the wind screen pictured below out of a peice of aluminum flashing. This setup works reliably, the only trouble I have with it is that it is difficult to light with only a small amount of fuel in the bottom (like to heat but not boil half a cup of water for coffee) when it is windy. Also very wide pots are too unstable, and because the flames come out the side you can’t really use anything much narrower than the cups pictured here.

I got the idea from here.

This is what my complete cook set looks like, including a coffee cup. The fuel container is a reused 8oz water bottle though I would use a bigger bottle on a longer trip:

Here it is all together:

I tie it in a handkerchief to keep it together, and the handkerchief also gets used as a pot holder and something to help clean up with. Here it is with my water bottle for size comparison:

Here are the stoves ready to light:

Fiona and I each carry one set (Fiona doesn’t have the coffee cup). We could get by with one but it’s faster to cook both meals at once, and this means we have a backup if something happens to one.

Here they are lit and waiting for the water to boil for our breakfasts (the alcohol burns so cleanly you can’t see the flames in daylight):

This morning Fiona is having a ready-made dehydrated backpacking meal, but I’m having one I put together myself. I made and tested this recipe myself (not that it’s rocket science, it’s just basic oatmeal).

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup quick oats
• 1 Tbs brown sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon (halve it if you just want a hint of cinnamon)
• Heavy pinch salt
• 1.5-2.5 Tbs of some fat (clarified butter (aka ghee) pictured below)
• 3-4 Tbs of dried fruit chopped small (1/4” cube or so)

Prepare:

1. Mix all the ingredients except the fat in a one quart Ziploc
   • I use the brand name ones because they are tested to be safe to use with boiling water. I can’t find any such info on the generic ones. I’ve used the generic ones and they didn’t impart any flavor but I jut don’t have as much confidence that they’re safe to put boiling water in).
   • Do not use the zipper ones, they are not airtight and will make everything around them smell like cinnamon.
2. If the fat is something dry like non-dairy creamer, add that too. Otherwise pack it separately.
3. Add a desiccant packet if it’s going to be stored a while before eating.

Cook:

1. Bring 2/3 cup water to a boil. (This will make thick but not dry oatmeal, add more water if you want it thin).
2. While waiting add your fat to the bag if it was not added already.
3. Pour the boiling water in the bag.
4. Stir or agitate immediately, plus a few times while waiting for it to be cool enough to eat.

Notes:

1. The purpose of the fat is to make oatmeal more satisfying. I normally find oatmeal without it to be too insubstantial.
   • The first fat I used was 2.5 Tbs of non-dairy creamer. It did not taste very good, but not so bad it was inedible, so I reduced it to 2 Tbs and increased the cinnamon. This is why there’s a lot of cinnamon in this recipe. Now I like it with this much cinnamon even when I use other fats.
   • Before this trip I tested 2.5 Tbs of regular butter at home as a replacement for the non-dairy creamer, and that was much better. I actually brought clarified butter (aka ghee) with me because it can go a while un-refrigerated, but I found that it tastes so much stronger than regular butter that I had to reduce this to 1.5 Tbs or so. This ended up tasting quite good.
   • While writing this I got the idea to try peanut butter or some other nut butter. I may do this next time!
2. Probably any fruit would work. The amount does not have to be exact and next time I may add more.
   • I like frozen wild Maine blueberries because they taste good and require no chopping.
   • I also like frozen strawberries for the flavor and they rehydrate well.
   • I’ve also tried apples, which taste good but I don’t like the rehydrated texture as much.

Here are our breakfasts cooking (rehydrating). The clarified butter has separated but it will stay mixed in when the oatmeal thickens.

For coffee I use the cheap instant coffee. Even though instant coffee doesn’t taste great, there is something satisfying about making it this way that makes up for it. Some backpackers seem to love the Starbucks Via instant coffee because it tastes better and is more convenient. Even if it does taste a little better, it’s still bad and definitely not 12x better (the difference in cost last time I compared). The individual packets also make a lot of trash you have to deal with.

Breakfast is served!

The tent we use (pictured earlier) is the Featherstone UL Peridot 2P. I wish it were just a little lighter and smaller, but I don’t think I can get a better free-standing tent for less than 3x the money. This is what it looks like packed up:

Here is what I bring for fishing. A few spinners (which are usually my favorite), and a few other things to experiment with. The stringer is for keeping a fish cool that I want to keep after they’ve been dispatched (I don’t keep them on it alive). The short bit of cheap paracord is to keep my Leatherman tied to my belt so I can use it to take out a hook without worrying about dropping it in the water.

I also have a collapsing rod, and the smallest reel I could find, onto which I always put as much line as possible so I don’t have to bring extra on a separate spool. Plus this inexpensive but decent Swedish knife, pictured here because I use it fishing but it obviously isn’t just for fishing:

With all of the above packed up in backpack, along with my sleeping bag, sleeping pad, clothes (all of which are nothing special), food, etc, my pack is not technically “ultralight” but it is surprisingly close for the money I paid for everything:

This time I didn’t have to carry it far, but I have carried this 5 miles in one day. While it certainly is heavy, it’s doable and a pretty average weight for backpacking. 5 miles isn’t very far compared to more serious backpackers, but I don’t do these things to count stats.

Paddling home

The morning of Saturday Fiona got in another swim, and we cleaned and packed up at a leisurely pace, leaving the camp site at around 2pm.

On the way back we had some fun trying to figure out what mountains we could see in the distance. You can’t see Katahdin from here due to the other mountains in between. The one on the left below is Horse Mountain, and the one to the right of it is Trout Brook Mountain - ones we recognized from hiking between them to get to our campsite last year.

Fiona’s stomach was bothering her a bit, so I did most of the paddling. We had a light breeze at our backs at first, but then had to paddle directly against it for a while too. Overall it was a leisurely paddle, and we were at the Trout Brook Farm Campground by about 4:00 and on the road at 4:30.

The first priority on this trip was to spend time with Fiona swimming and canoeing, but I also brought my fishing rod and some tackle just in case. I also wanted to use my phone as little as possible which would be pretty easy in the park since there’s no cell reception anywhere near it, but I also decided to navigate by paper map (and memory) as much possible, and did not take pictures of everything.

The Five Ponds trail is a loop, and the plan was to go the short way, counter-clockwise, to get to the site on Friday and the longer way to check out the other ponds on the way home.

The night at the campground was fine, though not very interesting other than the great view of the night sky with absolutely no light pollution. I live in an area where light pollution isn’t that bad but the stars and the Milky Way were still almost breathtaking the first time I looked up, after my eyes had adjusted to the dark, when I wasn’t thinking about looking at the stars, and there they were.

Hiking in

The weather forecast had predicted rain after 2:00pm Friday so we were prepared for it, and boy was I glad we were when it turned out to rain all day Friday instead. So we had to pack up and hike all three miles in the rain. Fiona sure was a trooper. At the camp site we set up a tarp quickly for some cover from the rain while we set up the tent and got unpacked.

Even in bad weather the campsite was absolutely beautiful with Long Pond right there, and Long Pond is surrounded on three sides by Trout Brook Mountain, Horse Mountain, and Billfish Mountain. There is one other campsite on this lake, and we could see tents at it when we arrived, but we never saw any sign of people and they left early Saturday. Another guy fished late in the evening, then left early the next morning. So for the vast majority of the time on that lake we had it all to ourselves. The whole weekend, including the hikes in/out, we only saw three people (one guy and a father/son pair) close enough to talk to, and didn’t talk to them for more than a minute each.

Here’s a picture of the site after the weather got better:

The tarp is in a slightly weird spot and at a somewhat awkward height and angle because I just wanted a quick place to get us and our gear out of the rain while we were unpacking and setting up, and this angle also blocked some of the wind. I don’t always bring the tarp backpacking but I sure was glad to have it this time. We took it down right after taking this picture so we could use the fire pit later.

This was our view from the tent also after the weather got better, Long Pond with part of Billfish Mountain raising to the right:

Swimming

Even while it was still raining lightly in the late afternoon Fiona couldn’t resist a quick swim:

That’s Horse Mountain shrouded by fog in the background.

Unfortunately the swim got cut short by a close call with a very large leech, so we knew we’d have to find a better swimming spot later. Eventually she decided she wanted to swim around the deep water, so she tried jumping out of the canoe. We found a spot where it was deep near shore so I could tie up the canoe with the 50 feet of paracord I had, this way if we accidentally flipped it we could swim the short distance to shore and haul the boat in with the rope. We did this on both Saturday and Sunday when the weather was nicer. This was fun but getting back in was hard, so she enjoyed a lot of swimming around between jumps. At one point I think she was in the water for 25 minutes without using the canoe - though I was always within 20 feet of course! Oh and we never did capsize the boat, though it was kinda close the first time she climbed back in, but we got better at it each time.

First canoe paddle

But the other thing we could do that Friday evening was go get the canoe we rented. For $8/day you get the key at the gate and they are chained to trees on the northern shore. This was Fiona’s first experience canoeing, and she took to it quickly and said she loved it. She already liked kayaking so that wasn’t a big surprise but still gratifying.

The weather that evening had lightened a little, but the clouds and the mist did make for some very cool pictures:

The mountain mostly shrouded by fog that Fiona is pausing to take in is Trout Brook Mountain. Something about this picture gets to me, it is my favorite that I have taken in a long time.

Here’s Fiona taking her first solo paddle the next day:

She doesn’t have the stamina yet to go far but enjoyed paddling around our little area. The nice thing about this small lake is that I can see the whole thing from camp anyway.

Here are a couple more pictures of us paddling in better weather, with Trout Brook Mountain fully visible now:

RiDUCKulous race

One funny thing that happened during a paddle Saturday was an encounter with a group of ducks. I think they are Common Merganser, a mother with three nearly full-grown adults ducklings. Whenever we got close (not that we were chasing them, but it’s not a big lake) they’d suddenly start quacking like crazy, and take off swimming faster than most people can sprint on land - so fast it looked like they were planing and everything! As they did it their bodies wobbled from side to side (I assume with every paddle of their opposite foot), and that combined with the splashing and the noise was hilarious. It sort of looked like they were racing one another so we took to calling it the Riduckulous Race.

High Pond

Another cool thing about this location is that there is another lake very close by - literally only 100 feet to the north is High Pond. The Five Ponds Trail goes right between them, and the canoes are stored between them, so it’s easy to drag a canoe over to check out High Pond! Well, I say easy, but you do have to drag the thing up and down a steep hill in between, but it’s worth it - it’s a lot smaller than Long Pond but it was really fun to go from one lake to another like that.

Here’s a point on the trail where you can see both lakes at once:

Here is the point on the trail where you cross the outlet that goes from High Pond to Long Pond, looking at High Pond with the camera only a few feed above it:

And turning around here is the view of Long Pond, you can see the short stream and that Long Pond is 15-20 feet lower elevation. I assume this is where High Pond gets its name, it is quite a bit higher than Long Pond considering how close it is!

One interesting thing we saw late in the afternoon shortly before the sun started setting, on both ponds but these pictures are on High Pond, was the waterbugs going crazy. I think they are the same waterbugs that are there all day but they suddenly start motoring around like jet skis! At first it’s just one or two and they really stand out because of the ripples they make, but eventually there are hundreds of them doing this.

At one point on High Pond we saw splashing on the other end as something went crazy in the water, breaching the surface and diving back so fast we saw nothing more than a blur and a splash, then doing it again 10 feet away a couple seconds later, maybe 10 times. It looked almost like a miniature version of a movie shark attack, but eventually we figured out it was a Loon! I assume it was chasing prey, and while I’ve seen lots of Loons diving under after something before I’ve never seen any sign of them until they come up later. This lake has a pair of Loons living on it though we only saw one at this time, we’ve seen them flying around visiting the other ponds, including Long Pond, throughout the weekend.

Fishing

As I mentioned earlier this trip was primarily about swimming and canoeing, but I did bring fishing gear so I could take advantage of what opportunities I got. Late Friday evening Fiona wanted some time out of the rain/mist/fog, and Saturday afternoon she wanted a break from the sun, so I got some fishing in then but didn’t catch anything. I had covered pretty much the whole lake, plus I got a few casts in on High Pond when I went over with Fiona, though not really enough to learn much there.

However, Sunday morning I decided to get up early (for me) and after an hour, just before the sun got too high to really call it “morning” any more, I realized that there was one cove I had missed (shown on the map below). It looks like it’s probably shallow from a distance, but up close is obviously deep in the middle. More importantly, there was tons of fish feeding on the waterbugs! Every 30 seconds or so I could see some activity. This cove was also cool because with no wind I could sit right in the middle of it and reach the whole cove with a decent cast. But the majority of the activity was on the southern edge of the deep part, probably because that was shady, so that’s where I concentrated and in fewer than 10 casts I landed a 14” native brook trout! Man was it a fighter - after flipping it into the boat it almost flopped right back out twice and if the hook hadn’t still been in it’s mouth I think it would have made it. According to what I’ve read this is about as big as they get in this lake, and was a bucket list catch for me!

Not only was the fish a bucket list catch but the whole morning almost perfectly fit something I’ve always wanted to accomplish - catch some native brookie and immediately cook it/them over the fire for breakfast, ignoring whatever it was that I packed. And that’s exactly what I did! Though I didn’t expect to catch anything on this trip, I am always an optimist so I had packed some clarified butter and salt to cook it with. The only thing I could improve upon is my technique over a fire - it’s not something I do enough to be great at, and it probably would have helped to have brought a better pan. This fish was also big enough to filet, which I didn’t do to save some time but I might if I got to do it over. Despite all that, I’d take this meal over any restaurant salmon any day.

This morning, combined with how much fun Fiona had swimming and experiencing canoeing for the first time, make this easily of my favorite hiking or fishing or camping trips ever.

It may look like I am holding the fish in a way that might hurt it but don’t worry - it’s dead. I already humanely dispatched it before taking these pictures.

However, you’ll have to ignore both my horrible photography and sartorial choices here. I hate taking selfies but was alone and wanted a picture of this fish. I also literally got out of bed right into the canoe without changing, and that night it had been cold (48) so I had just thrown on whatever extra layers I had without thinking about a photo shoot later. Also the life jacket is part of renting the canoe, I definitely did not pick that sun-faded tan/purple color combo.

My lack of selfie-skills also means that this is the only picture I have that shows the color on this fish. Here it is cleaned and ready to cook. The gallon-sized Ziploc it is on also helps show the size:

Leaving

Here are a couple final pictures from Saturday of the serene lake taken from camp. Note that the trees are not turning yet but the angle of the sun makes them look a different color on camera though they are green in person.

Here is the site, all cleaned up before we left. It is amazing to think all that stuff we had here fits in two backpacks that we can comfortably carry for miles!

The hike back was relatively uneventful with much better weather. We missed the turnout to see Round Pond up close but decided it wasn’t worth backtracking for so only saw it from a distance. We stopped at the unoccupied Billfish Pond campsite for lunch, and decided that our campsite was definitely better, though Billfish Pond itself sure looks interesting! Littlefield Pond was a nice place to stop for a break, but not much to see here either.

Here’s Fiona posing under the roots of a fallen tree. They looked even bigger in person.

Couldn’t resist taking a picture with this lighting, just a few minutes from the car.

Finally, on the way home, we get quite a few glances at Katahdin. On a whim while passing one lookout I took out my phone and snapped a dozen pictures without looking, this one came out pretty good. The window glass and the low late afternoon sun are going weird but cool things to the colors. Someday we’ll hike up Katahdin!

A school of squid! (Or “squad” of squid I guess).

It turns out they’re pretty easy to catch, you just use a special lure which is very similar to a regular brightly colored floating fishing lure, but with barbless hooks. Squid catch things by wrapping their tentacles around them, so I guess it would be just about impossible to get barbed hooks out of them. It means that you can’t let them get slack while reeling in, but that didn’t seem to be too difficult - while they do fight a bit, if you just reel steadily they won’t get off. I was able to hold them in the air over the water for a moment before dropping them in my bucket to give them a chance to squirt out most of their ink into the ocean without losing any. For most of them I had to grab the lure and tip it upside down over the bucket to get them off it, but I didn’t get squirted myself.

Dragging the lure right through the middle of the squad, I was reeling one in with every other cast! After catching a couple and seeing the range of sizes, I started letting the smallest 1/3 or so go, and decided to stop after keeping just four because I wasn’t sure how difficult it would be to clean them.

I brought them home, and cleaned them in the sink. Those big eyes make them very creepy looking, but other than that they aren’t too bad to clean (and they don’t feel as slimy as they look - not that different than fish really).

Here they are all cleaned. I peeled the skin off one just to see if it made any difference, it was pretty easy to do but I won’t bother in the future because I couldn’t tell the difference.

I cut them up into pieces, two got dredged in flour then dropped in a half inch of hot oil, and they tasted amazing! The other two are in the freezer, hopefully to be joined by more so I can make a whole meal for more than one person out of them.

This is the sight you’re greeted with about 1.4 miles in, your first glimpse of the ocean. Way off in the distance is our destination:

About half a mile later, we’ve walked along all those cliffs in the background:

Another angle of the same spot, those are 20-30 foot trees growing on the side of an 80 foot cliff!

Finally we got to our campsite! I didn’t bother with any pictures of it, but here was our view from it. That land you can barely see way off in the distance on the far right is Canada.

On our way out I snapped this picture, looking back at the camp site from up high. You can see one other tent in the trees, near where ours had been. That beach may look nice from up here but the rocks are all between softball and watermelon-sized, very hard to walk on! We ate two meals sitting on those flat rocks that jut out into the water:

It’s hard to demonstrate how steep and/or narrow the trail is in some places, but I think Fiona’s face says a lot here:

And here is how narrow it is at times:

But just as often, the trail follows along open cliff-tops like this one. Fortunately, it’s pretty wide in these cases so it doesn’t feel too unsafe:

On the way back, when we got to the last part of the trail that is on the ocean, we took a long break and somehow Fiona found the energy to climb on the rocks some more (this part wasn’t quite as scary in person as that first picture makes it look):

Finally, here are some other images of the views:

This looks funny but Fiona is actually grabbing an ear because of an ear infection

Having hot chocolate and watching some carolers after the Christmas parade.

First time in the new sandbox (I finished it a little later in the year than I intended to)

First snow of the winter. “SNOW! I’m going to go get my boots on!”

Trying to dig out the sandbox after the first big snowstorm

Christmas eve at Papa’s house

Christmas morning at Avó Butterworth’s house

Fiona one year difference

Watching airplanes take off in Augusta

Getting hair cut buy someone other than the parents for the first time

Sometimes breaking the rules a little and playing catch in the house with a soft ball is hillarious

These are supposed to be worn on the feet…

Wearing a hardhat and robe to play the piano

Charge!

Dennis, our landlord’s cat

Getting a hair cut buy someone other than the parents for the first time

Sometimes breaking the rules a little and playing catch in the house with a soft ball is hillarious

I’m pretty sure this cake was slightly more symmetrical when we got it at the store…

Yes standing up, the snow is up to the waist there!

Enjoying new freedom after converting the crib to a toddler bed

OK so not quite adjusted to sleepigng in the new bed yet!

This is what things look like after drawing with markers

Successfully using chopstick helper thingies.

Helping out with a broom found while we were looking at a house for sale.

Tired after a long day opening presents

Building a snowman

Actually was more interested in knocking it down than building it

Christmas 2012 in a Nutshell

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Giving the landlord's cat a treat

Trying to climb a wall like some older kids had just done

Digging in the sand with a mussel shell

Playing with Avó Kidd's glasses

Actually played catch for a while! Actually it was more like, I’d catch, then I’d throw and there’d be giggling but no attempt to catch it. But still, it would get thrown back to me!

Watching the Christmas parade

Trying to give that duck a kiss

Trick-or-treating in the Pocoyo Halloween costume!

It’s hard to see but theres several stuffed animals carefully tucked in under that towel.

Found like this while napping. Maybe got warm?

Discovering that you can see yourself on the screen of my phone if we use the front-facing camera! I’ve never actually had a use for that thing before.

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Gato

Click here for the full gallery.

Opening a present

Here’s a typical day, wearing Daddy’s slippers, leg warmers on arms, a sock on a hand, and making faces.

That’s water that was just sucked out of the sippy cup on the floor and spit into the pot…

…And now drinking it.

Click here for the full gallery.

Special way of getting into chairs

Trying sparkling apple cider for the first time

Didn’t like it!

Making faces after making a mess

Waiting for a Dr appt

I guess that’s a better way to wear shirts!

Cleaning up after playing with some finger paint

Sharing toys with Hagrid

Painting first halloween pumpkin

Climbed up there all alone

Eating first pizza! (homemade)

Climbed up on the shelf all alone, and started whining for help getting down.

First apple while apple-picking!

Fiona took it to the bedroom hit the record button. The clicks you hear at the beginning are the sound of pushing other buttons on the camera. Then it’s back out to the kitchen where you can see some pots and pans and empty yogurt containers (another favorite toy) on the floor, and catch a glimpse of playing with the cabinets. Then the camera is put back down in a white mixing bowl, and the bowl carried with the camera back to the bedroom.

Fiona and cousin, Caiden

Fiona and cousin, Caiden

On the swing

I guess it’s good!

When it’s too cold to swim, loves throwing balls into the pool

Week 74

Pictures from our trip are coming soon!

Week 67

Week 68

First boat ride

First boat ride

First boat ride

First boat ride

In Boston

Hugging a stuffed dog

Loves throwing toys in the spin dryer!

BEFORE getting shots

AFTER getting three shots! (doesn’t exactly seem miserable)

Fiona walking

Week 53

Opening presents is tiring!

Mr Cool

Mr Cute

Mr Crazy

Examining the metal rod to open the skylight

St. Patrick’s Day

IDK

Eating watermelon and wearing new sunglasses

Short version:

Long version:

Bubbles!

Bubbles!

Splash

Bubble

Overalls

Hat

Book in a box

Snowsuit

Overalls

Smiling

ooooohhhhh

!

Playing Peekaboo:

Peekaboo 1

Peekaboo 2

Peekaboo 3

Peekaboo 4

Peekaboo 5

Weeee

Eating

Eating

Snowsuit

Hmmmm

Week 46

Pretend frown

Look at this

Can make a mess!

Look at this!

To clean, or not to clean

Playing the drum

Sitting

More drum

Bath time

Playing

Week 44

Examining a Cheerio

Just being cute

Meh

Weeee!

Pulled upright unaided!

Toys

New hat

First gift

Petting Toonsie

More presents

Hagrid checking things out

Likes the new drum!

Week 40

Checking out our tree-topper, a Flying Spaghetti Monster

Asleep on the couch

That’s flexibility!

Evil grin

I guess we got tired at the grocery store

Inspecting a new toy

Playing in the kitchen

Hey a spoon!

Big smile

Standing in the Pack ’n Play (Can’t stand up alone yet, but loves standing up with help and holding onto the side!)

Sleeping in the car seat

Grammy and Grandpa Jackson

Sippy cup

Playing with the paper on the exam table at the Doctor's office

Week 33

Week 34

Week 35

All ready to eat…

Taking a bite of pumpkin…

Keeps making this face, but then seems to want more

Keeps making this face, but then seems to want more

Definitely likes banana!

But hasn't quite yet mastered the art of the sippy cup

Peeking out from behing a pillow

Figuring out how to clap!

Watching us put up decorations outside, in the high chair, in a sweater that's way too big (but warm!)

In crib

In sock monkey Halloween costume

In the tub

Fiona and Grandpa Achorn

Fiona and Grandpa Achorn

I guess the empty hamper is interesting

Almost crawling!

Fiona and Brad

Tired

I swear, definitely strapped in!

Aunts Vanessa and Stephanie

Making faces during Boob Group

Making friends during Boob Group

In the tub

Smiling

Playing with a blanket

Fiona with toys

Fiona sitting

Fiona funny face

Having fun at the Doctor's office, shaking/tearing the paper on the exam table!

Sticking tongue out

Concentrating very hard on toys

Konked out

Great minds think alike!

Great minds think alike

Just being cute

Trying to lick the bath water

Another new toy (hasn’t quite figured it out yet).

Checking out the grass

Funny face

Smiling

Bath time

Playing with a toy piano in Planet Toys, Rockland ME

Playing with a toy piano in Planet Toys, Rockland, ME

Smiling

Fiona and Daddy

This waterbottle is always fascinating when somone is drinking from it too

Going to be a computer genius!

Going to be a computer genius!

Splashing in the tub

Laughing with Daddy

All tired out

Funny face 1

Funny face 2

Funny Face 3

Awww

Splashing in the tub

Playing with a toy (was holding it and chewing on it, then decided to leave it like that)

Enjoying a ride in the stroller

Ooooh buttons!

Sleeping

Favorite bath time toy

Pondering the swing

Weee!

New book

26.5 inches tall

Choice quote from the Doctor:

“You officially have a perfect baby!”

I wonder where this comes from:

Asleep, but it's almost bath time!

Time to wake up…

Or not

Try #2…

Doh!

Third try, looks awake this time…

ARRRGH!

Fiona's first airplane ride!

First time in a pool. I don't think we’ve made our mind up about it yet…

Swimming in the pool

I guess we’re starting to like it!

Meeting new second cousin Caiden

Good vacation!

(For those of you reading this in your email, click the link below to see)

First tooth, with a second peeking through. Taken while crying because it's the first time we could get a picture of them, taken July 20, 2010

Both new teeth, taken July 22, 2010

Fiona standing

Fiona studying toy

Fiona and Chelsea

Fiona smiling

Fiona sticking out tongue

Fiona and Sabrina

Smiling on changing pad

Inspecting a new toy (it passed with flying colors)

Another new toy to chew on!

Learning new tricks

Fiona is skeptical

They include Father’s Day and general Fiona cuteness.

https://bradachorn.com/i/Fiona/Week Fourteen/12734639_98Gp2#917173903_4J8VV

Father's Day

In the gym

Getting ready for bed

Length was 25 inches, and head size was 17 inches.

Weighed today, and is now at 16 pounds, 14 ounces.

Smiling

Tummy time

In the swing

Asleep

Bright eyed before bed

In a hat in a chair

Surprise!

Cool sunglasses

Sleeping

Fiona smiling

Fiona smiling

Fiona being held up

It’s been so long since the last update there are two new sets of photos:

Week Nine (https://bradachorn.com/i/Fiona/Week Nine/)

Week Ten (https://bradachorn.com/i/Fiona/Week Ten/)

Smiling and talking at a mobile

Hat and sunglasses from Grandma Kidd

Smiling during a bath

Cutest. Baby. Ever.

Sumo baby!

Enjoying the bath

Enjoying looking at/talking to the mobile

A visit from the Achorns

Making faces

Smile!

Looking at a favorite book, showing off the sexy diaper!

Sticking tongue out at Daddy

They may be old by now but I just got them from my parents’ camera!

Grammie and Fiona

Week Six (https://bradachorn.com/i/Fiona/Week Six/)

Fiona talking to a best friend - the post on the swing

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Kristel’s Pictures (https://bradachorn.com/i/Fiona/Kristels Photos 2010 04 27/)

Wow!

Fiona and Sabrina

Fiona and Sabrina

Asleep in the swing

Waking up in the car seat

Fiona's pseudo frowny face (actually happy and just making faces)

Fiona on the changing table again, strrrrretching out legs

Fiona on the changing table

Fiona at the hospital, being measured and checked out, less than an hour old!