Finding one's way

It's taken me awhile to compose my thoughts on Saturday's hike. I was thinking about it between naps during the 2 hr drive home. So here goes... The day was lovely; cool and crisp with no mosquitos. Paul and I were in good spirits after having carbo-loaded at the diner in Tilton, NH. We started on a hike that Paul had mapped out, claiming we would return in less than 4 hrs, so a relatively short hike by historic standards. The hike would compose of 3 parts, each path forming a perfect triangle: a south-eastly path to the mountaintop, then a westerly path down the mountain, then a north-easterly path back to the parking lot. The climb up the mountain was fairly easy. There were large rocks, but with walking poles and a coolness in the air, it wasn't terribly difficult. We made it to the top in about 2 hrs. There we witnessed gorgeous scenary: mountain peaks as far as the eye can see and a 100 mph gailforce wind that kept the clouds racing each other from peaktop to peaktop. We make a quick decision: yes, it's gorgeous, but let's get the hell of the top of this mountain before we're blown over. We get down into the treeline, and sneak over to a large rock off the beaten path. There we devour some high energy candy bars, restoring our blood sugar levels. We follow this path, the Beeline, down the mountain for 2 miles. Along the way, we couldn't help but notice the poor state of the trail. It was unkept and hadn't looked used since the previous year. Nevertheless, we were happy when we saw a sign at the end of the trail pointing us to the last leg of our journey, the Borres trail. What did the sign say? 4 miles back to the parking lot? Oh, dear. So we picked up our feet and kept walking. Little did we know, that this would be the exciting part. About 10 minutes into the trail, we noticed that the trail was washed out. There was a small river where the trail should be. We looked around for signs, but only noticed a little hazard marker tacked to a tree. We followed it. Then we saw another, and another. We followed these hazard markers along a small path. But then before we knew it, the path ended. We looked up. Where are the hazard markers? We don't see them. We start to bushwhack, trying to make a clearing for us to walk. This is crazy! So we look at the map. The Borres trail follows a river, but the river forks off. So we decide to just go down to where the river is. We do this. We get to the river. Should we cross it, or go back? We decide to cross in case the right trail is just on the other side. We cross and indeed find a trail! We were very happy. We follow this trail along the river. The trail ends about 10 minutes later. Good God! We turn around and head back following this trail. We pass the point where we had crossed the river. We decide to stay on this trail assuming it would take us back to the start. But as we continue on, the trail gets further away from the river, and then it crosses a different river! So which is the right river the Borres trail is supposed to be on? I am really beginning to panick. We decided to get off this trail and bushwhack our way back to the first river we crossed. As we are approaching this river, I happened to noticed a hazard sign tacked to a tree! I couldn't believe it. This was the same sign we saw on the OTHER side of that river. So is that where we went wrong? At this point I didn't really care to find out. We follow these signs, assuming they wouldn't mislead us again. But we were wrong. Again the trail shortly ends, and Paul decides to bushwhack his way up the mountain. I have a bad feeling about this. We shouldn't be going UP the mountain. I tell him we should head back down and stay close to the river. We turn and head down. In less than a minute, I stumble across what looks like a fairly decent trail. I'm elated. Let's take this! It sure beats bushwhacking. We follow it, and it doesn't seem to end. I allow myself to breathe a bit more easily. We frequently check the compass. Yes, we're going north. But still no signs. We go over a pass and are starting to go downhill more. Our legs are very sore, but the thought of staying on the mountain drives us on. As we walked on, we noticed that someone else had used this path recently. There were moose prints. I made these prints my new guide. Whenever the trail was too overgrown in parts, we followed the prints, and the moose was right! The prints got us back on track. The trail eventually led to some bridges, and eventually we saw a campfire. We were close! The trail joined with another trail. We stopped at the junction and turned around to see if we could see a sign indicating what trail we were on. There was a sign, and it said "trail" pointing to the OTHER trail!!! So what the hell were we on? We walked on and eventually saw another sign, saying "Bolles Trail" pointing in the direction from which we came, but we knew the Bolles Trail had been the trail the other sign had pointed to, and not the one we were on. We got to the car and collapsed. We had left at 10:45, and it was now 6:15. 7.5 hrs. We pulled out of the parking lot and started to drive away. But the story doesn't end there. About 500 feet down the road, we saw a bunch of cars pulled over on the side of the road. The cars in front of us had slowed down to a crawl. What was going on? We looked to our right and saw everyone just standing there, staring at a moose who was staring right back. It was our guide!! I just knew it! He was beautiful just standing there. He was in no rush even though the crowd around him was growing. I'd like to think he was waiting for someone to show up, perhaps us. I thanked him and we drove on home.