¨ County Coos Traverse
"THE EXPLORERS" TACKLE A ROUGH PATH ACROSS THE TOP OF THE STATE
O N A R AW, B R I N Y O C T O B E R D AY, we were 16 miles into our two-day, 40-mile mountain bike ride across the northern part of the state. Stringing together fire roads, snowmobile trails and grassy deer paths, the six of us were negotiating the eastern portion of the Second College Grant, making our way from the Maine border to the Connecticut River and Vermont. Despite some hilly terrain and the damp gray chill, our hearts were light as Chris Pierce, Joe Klementovich, Bridget Freudenberger, Mike Zizza, and his 22-year-old daughter, Anna, and I followed the contour of the Swift Diamond River. After we crossed a bridge over the river, the map on Joe’s phone indicated that we should angle westward on what was marked as an old snowmobile trail. But soon our riding was hindered by piles of slash and bracken left behind by loggers, along with clusters of thigh-high weeds. Adding to our difficulties, the trail was made indistinct by overlapping corridors of open ground trailing into the woodland.
What had been a pleasant trek despite the weather turned into a slog. Not far along, we discovered that the path contained muddy sloughs marked with the imprint of fresh moose tracks. The mud sucked at my tires and fouled the gears, and the thorny piles of deadwood began appearing more frequently, blocking the trail. Our progress slowed to approximately two miles an hour. With his fat tires and nearly a thousand miles of riding this year, Piercey was having pretty good luck, tricky-trotting along the edge of the swampy areas and rolling over the piles of deadwood.
But Mike and I were forced to dismount every few minutes, hauling our bikes over the obstacles and muddying our feet to the shins. It was like trying to water ski in the Okefenokee swamp, so we plodded along, wary of the fading daylight and glancing up at the dim gray sky. OUR TRIP had a promising start beneath a sign on Route 16 welcoming us to Maine. We biked past a tiny cemetery, along the dirt road and around the gate that marked the entrance to the 27,000-acre Second College Grant, ceded to Dartmouth College by the state Legislature in 1809. Piercey and I had biked the first miles of
Anna and Mike Zizza climb the last hill to camp in the late afternoon sun.
By Jay Atkinson / Photography by Joe Klementovich nhmagazine.com | October 2021 63
