blue blazes

blue blazes
Originally uploaded by wereldmuis.

Dicey's Mill trail is pretty well marked, with blue blazes along most of the way, and signs at trail junctions. Despite that, I managed to lose the trail about a half mile after entering the Sandwich Range Wilderness. I zigged when I should have zagged, and the trail just vanished! I thought I had missed a bend in the trail, and backtracked all the way back to the entrance to the Wilderness area, wondering whether my chances at summitting Passaconaway were blown by this little diversion.

It turned out that I had followed the trail correctly, and I should have just gone right instead of left at the point where I'd become confused. It was pretty easy to see when I came back to it, but there were no blue blazes at that point to help.

Later, after about an hour of hiking, I had to stop to apply extra blister cushions to my heels. I had started out with a couple to begin with, but it felt like they weren't helping, so I added two more (in the end these didn't help as much as they had in the past).

With these delays, I was not off to a promising start, time-wise! Despite that, I was really enjoying the hike.

Entire Mt Passaconaway Trip Report