Outdooraddict: Wandering to Whitecap

The Hundred Mile Wilderness in Maine is one of the most remote areas of the Appalachian Trail, if it wasn't for the infamous A.T. passing through this large parcel of wild land it probably wouldn't be talked about at all.
The influx of outdoor enthusiasts over the years has created a bittersweet feeling when hiking today, It's enjoyable to see so many discovering what nature is capable of doing for one's soul, but sad to not have as much solitude while on the trail as there once was. I think this area may have the solitude I crave when hiking.
I've never done any hiking within the Hundred Mile Wilderness, so Evan's proposed hike and camp on Whitecap mountain, which is also the high point of the Wilderness at approximately 3655', was welcomed.
After being denied access to the White Brook Trail from the Katahdin Iron Works entrance, due to logging in the area, Evan changed his planned hike up White Brook trail to the A.T. on the eastern side of the mountain by way of Ki-Jo Mary Checkpoint.
We were driving slowly on many miles of old logging roads as they slowly became less used and at times the weeds and grass growing, on these once used roads, were taller than my little Honda Civic until we rolled past a view point and Evan quickly recognized that we were on the opposite side of Whitecap... This kid's knowledgeable of the landscape! So we turned around and worked our way through "roads", that I would've questioned taking a truck on, back to correct our miscalculated route. We arrived at the trail head a few hours after our planned time, but this route was to be a bit shorter than White Brook leaving us enough time to hike the short three miles of the A.T. before arriving at the summit.

The start of our short hike.

The trail was never extremely steep,and was a pleasant walk through the deep forest of Maine. Our encounter with people was limited to just a few as we worked our way past an A.T. lean-to and towards the first viewpoint of the day.
After we passed the viewpoint the trail continued upwards at a moderate incline where the "stairway to heaven" began. This stairway was made over time with many rocks and sweat from volunteers and seemed to go forever to heaven.

Bella and Evan climbing the stairway to heaven.

Stairs going on to the heavens.

Shortly after the stair climb we emerged from the trees into the open meadows of the alpine zone on Whitecap's summit. The summit had many spectacular views and the clouds were slowly giving way to the blueness of open sky, which will definitely give us a perfect sunset.

On the summit

We searched the summit for a place flat enough to set up our tent, but the entire summit was a pile of jagged rock with no space big enough to comfortably put a tent without puncturing the tent base and possibly a rib or two. On the northern side of the summit through trees and alpine vegetation we found wooden planks from a fire tower that once stood. The planks were placed together creating a rickety platform type spot big enough for our tent, and we called it home for the night.

A perfect place to call home for a night...

A home with a view of course!

After a delightful sunset the winds started picking up as the temperature quickly dropped. We hunkered down for the night as the perceptible natural movement of air constantly bombarded all sides of our tent forcing the surrounding vegetation to scrape and brush the outside tent walls as if kids were running around amusing themselves by poking the tent walls with sticks.

Getting ready for sunset

The perfect sunset!

With a less than restful night sleep I poked my head out of the tent, which was facing west, to see a disappointing white out of clouds. As I slowly emerged from the tent and looked towards the east I saw some spectacular pink, orange and yellow colors above the northeast horizon with clouds appearing to be from an oil painting high overhead, layered across the sky, down to flowing lower clouds at our elevation quickly passing over Whitecap summit changing the scenic landscape by the second.

With each passing second the floating clouds changed colors and shape like a turning kaleidoscope in the sky, and glowing yellow and orange hues reflecting off the valley floor from the rays of sunshine streaming through the layers of clouds.

We broke down camp and returned our traveling homestead into our backpacks, while the winds disrupted the ebb and flow of drizzle falling from the clouds above. After a short hike through the openness of the alpine zone we entered the shelter of the canopy and had a pleasant hike until we approached what appeared to be a Dalmatian perched on a rock off the side of a steep scramble section of trail. It was a startling scene at first, but within a moment of noticing it I realized it was a statue placed there for reasons unknown at that time, and after attempting to research on Google, have still not learned of it's origin or reason, but then again we all do things for our own reasoning.