I had been impatiently waiting for a decent weather window to make the long drive to Maine. After going 0 for January forecast showed 5 mph winds on summits for Feb 3 and convinced a college friend who lives in Maine to join me for a Bigelow range hike. I was looking forward to revisiting these peaks as I remembered form my AT section hike that the views were second to none. However I was also a little concerned that the only posting on new england trail conditions described an aborted attempt. On the spreadsheet of Maine winter hikes that Joe Cedar had kindly provided me he described extremely hard trailbreaking in the steep sections the year he did it. We were hoping that someone had broken out the Fire Wardens trail but would soon see that that was going to be our job.
Parked at the AT trailhead on Rt 27. Cold below zero start but it soon warmed up and it was a beautiful clear day for hiking. Despite this we did not see another person all day. Some prior light traffic on the AT to Stratton Brook road and then easy walk on the road up to the kiosk where we turned left up another road to the pond and eventually to the start of the fire warden's trail. No tracks, only a a barely detectable trench with a firm base underneath several inches of snow. Above Horns Pond trail jxn no trench or firm base present and things started to get a bit more strenuous in the deep snow, some areas had a weak sunbaked crust. Above Moose Falls campsite it gets very steep for a very long stretch. Seemed like it would never end. Vigorous kick stepping needed every step of the way and we still slid back a bit almost every step. No way I could have broken this all out by myself. Definitely deserves an 11 on the degree of difficulty dial. It took us well over 2 hours to do the 1.2 miles from the campsite up to the col. Some trouble route finding in the col but soon we were ascending Avery peak. A few quick photos and back down and over to West peak. Would have liked to linger longer but we were already late enough that we would be finishing well after dark
Much short glissading on the steep sections with our MSR lightenings and it was a relief to get that section done without falling. By the Horns Pond jxn we had donned headlamps and it was a long slow trudge back to the car. 12 hours round trip.
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