Some hikes are planned while others are more a matter of convenience. With our goal to say active each weekend, we always incorporate outdoor adventures into the agenda. With a trip to Saco River Brewing planned, we stopped at the Mountain Division Trail in Fryeburg along the way for a quick hike.

It was also an opportunity to break in my newly purchased STABILicers^TM. I’d already attempted a few too many winter hikes without the right gear and was excited to be finally properly equipped for the ice and snow. I was also especially happy that my new equipment came from a local company out of Biddeford. I bought them at Renys in Portland and this was my first opportunity to try them out.

While it was a great opportunity to use my new crampons, the hike itself was a little boring as this section of the trail was a straight path up and back, and although it was surrounded by beautiful views there wasn’t a lot of variety to the trail.

This is a shared use trail and during our hour long trek we encountered one snow mobile rider, and a group of three kids on cross country skis, but otherwise it was a fairly quite trail the afternoon we were there. The trail was easy to maneuver, although on one attempt to venture off the main trail I found myself knee deep in snow.

While we hadn’t had our February storms yet when we did this hike, there was enough snow where we could have used snowshoes on this trek, but the STABILicers worked great and made for easy hiking. Without a loop or other distractions of many of the trails we normally use, we just did 30 minutes up and then 30 minutes back on the straight path.

While the path was parallel to road, for the most part we didn’t see or hear traffic. As with the rest of the Mountain Division trail it runs parallel to railroad tracks. There were lovely views especially of the mountains in the distance.

I have come to really love winter hiking and am excited to have more winter ready gear, but as we just crossed over into spring there won’t be too many more snow filled hikes this season. We’re moving into mud season and time for new hiking gear and lots of bug spray.