As mountains go, Mt. Battie is an 800 foot pipsqueak in the family of big-boy hills. It's made of stuff called
Battie Quartzite, thought to be over 500 million years old. Because it's so hard, as wind and rain wore the neighborhood down, Battie rose up like a big bump to watch over pretty litttle Camden Harbor right below it.
It was Sunday after breakfast and the heat would be rising soon. So we filled a water bottle and went for a mid-morning hike up Battie's lumpy quartzite shanks. In earlier times, Sarah and I used to do this walk often. We would go into the woods in back of her parents house on Route 1, cross a little stream (that after rain wasn't so little) and then bushwhack to the hikers parking lot to pick up the real trail up the mountain.
Today we started in the little lot by the park entrance gate, walked up the road to the hiker's car park and took off from there. Walking any rocky mountain trail, even one that gains only a measely 800 feet in altitude, requires constant attention, at least for adults. (Kids don't seem to look much and also seem to not fall much, which is so unfair!) We each carry a Leki hiking stick for balance and that extra push up a big step. Without it, I know I would surely stumble or worse.
The day gets hotter as we climb but we get a break as, mercifully, the bugs seem to be napping. We drink lots of water at rest breaks and I carefully watch my uncoordinated size 14 feet for potential geriatric misbehavior. We finally cross the auto road near the top and start up the last section. A few hundred yards from the top, the auto road swings tantalizingly near the trail and I chicken out and yield to the temptation to start back down a smooth paved surface.
There is a little breeze swishing over the hot asphalt as we stick to the right shoulder with its occasional patches of shadow from the scrub oak and pine growing alongside. Going down is always hard on knees but the hiking sticks ease the forward jolt and soon we are turning right at the park gate and trudging the last 100 yards to our car. I had forgotten to lock it as we started out and for a moment Sarah and I share a "what if" moment as we approached. But after all this is Maine, and all was well except the heat inside must have been well over 100 muggy degrees.
It's only about a mile to our house from the park and the World Cup women's soccer final was just starting as I eased my sore self into my comfy green leather chair to watch. Wow, what a heart-pounding-gutsy-give-it-everything-you've-got, contest it was! I'm sorry for Abby Wambach in particular because the game seemed so important to her and she played so well, except for the shot she missed in the last few seconds. That one was really too bad as I'm sure it will haunt her for a long time.
But that said, the Japanese team was terrific too. They never gave up and they were playing for a country that has suffered so much lately. One almost wished it could have been a tie. A perfect ending to a wonderful day.
