I did yesterday, despite what I wrote two weeks ago that I couldn't.

Of course, yesterday I didn't actually get to the 'theyah' I was aiming for, but I found another 'theyah' that helped me find the 'old jeep road' that will take me to the 'theyah' I had been aiming for.

(Darn, ended another sentence with a preposition.)

The 'theyah' I had been looking for last week and yesterday was the section of the Appalachian Trail in Maine where it crosses the 'old jeep road' and Marble Brook west of Monson and east of nowhere.

Even though I didn't actually get to that 'theyah' yesterday, I now have found two ways to access it from Breakneck Ridge Road. This is because of the three guys I also found, whose voices I heard in a distance when the only voice I thought I'd hear would be that of a bull moose asking me when the next moose hunting season was scheduled for that neck of the woods.

I could have told him, October 18. But the moose didn't ask. I did ask the three guys I found if they had passed Marble Brook and the 'old jeep road.'  They said they had. It turned out that the voices had belonged to three hikers heading from the Jo-Mary Road to Moxie Bald Lean-to, another four miles west of where I met them. On their route, they had passed the 'theyah' for which I was looking. (Note: did not end this sentence with a preposition.)

I also asked another half dozen guys I met, who were driving their pickups along Breakneck Ridge Road in hopes of finding a partridge for their supper table. They didn't know where my 'theyah' was. Most were locals, who lived within 20 miles of where I stood, scratching my head trying to figure out where my section of trail was. One of them turned out to be Roger Foster from Harrison in western Maine. He reminded me that when I had lived in South Paris and written for the Lewiston Sun Journal, he had been a science teacher at Oxford Hills High School and had taught all four of my kids. (He must be retired now, because otherwise he wouldn't have had time to drive all the way to the Breakneck Ridge Road via Kingfield.)

Some of the pickupers asked me if I was having any luck. They meant finding birds, of course, not finding where the AT crosses Marble Brook and the 'old jeep road.' I told two of those guys I had seen a whole flock of birds, turkeys, and had indeed shot them. When they reminded me that October 4 was not in turkey season, I smiled and held up my old faithful Minolta -- the one I've had since Roger taught my kids.

Now I may dub October 4 as more than not moose season or as part of bird season. I may call it Miracle Day. Or, another name could be Finding the 'old jeep road' by Sheer Coincidence Day.

Yesterday I had been determined to follow what I had been convinced was the 'old jeep road' to my section of AT where I would begin checking the AT corridor boundary lines for incursions illegal within the AT corridor, such as condos built other than where Plum Creek has planned its development not too far from there. The AT is the world's longest National Park and is bound by national park regulations that among other forbidden sins, includes the building of condos within its corridor.

When I mentioned to two of the guys in pickups that condos would be listed in uses not permitted within the AT corridor, they laughed. They knew moose don't build condos.

I started in on the 'old jeep road,' which soon became the 'old filled-with-undergrowth-and-blowdowns road.' In places it was as wide as four feet, while in other spots I couldn't actually see where I was walking because of the crowded five-foot-high cedars and spruce blocking my view of the mossy pathway I could still feel with my feet. I used yellow ribbon to mark my way, following the ingenious example of Grimm's Hansel and Gretel, who used bread crumbs instead of yellow ribbon not then available in hardware stores. (I would never use bread crumbs because those moose stalking me just might like to snack on bread crumbs.)

At one point the 'old filled-with-undergrowth-and blowdowns-road' became the 'old filled-with-a-flowage road.' The flowage appeared to be a small brook that widened when it came to the 'old jeep road,' flowing around the old ruts. I'm sure stepping on raised, mossy areas to negotiate a crossing without sinking up to your armpits is not new to most of you who read this. There's that initial question, as you look for a tree on which to post a note to your maybe-to-become-a-widow loved one. Will this moss hold me? Is my watch really waterproof? Will she find the note?

I got past the flowage and continued, checking the compass regularly. What I discovered regularly was that the 'old jeep road,' which had left the Breakneck Ridge Road headed north as the maps all indicated it should, began to swing to the southeast and eventually due south. This change in direction meant I would likely end up back on the Breakneck Ridge Road unless I broke my neck first or this apparently horseshoe-shaped old log road ended in the woods where the loggers had finished cutting.

I turned back, following the yellow ribbons north to go south to get back to the Breakneck Ridge Road.

When I was about 30 yards from the Breakneck Ridge Road, the miracle occurred. Something caught the peripheral vision in my right eye and made me turn in that direction. Off in the woods, I spotted what appeared to be boglogs. In that neck of the Maine woods, the only boglogs would be located nowhere other than on the Appalachian Trail. I turned in that direction, stepped through a screen of brush and, sure enough, I was on the AT. I photographed the boglogs just to later assure myself I hadn't totally lost it and was seeing an AT mirage. I then saw a sign, identifying this path with its two-by-six-inch white blazes as the AT and even boasting arrows pointing north and south.

Then I heard the voices and met the hikers. Next I went back to the road, happy I'd actually found the AT but puzzled as to why I'd found it where it wasn't supposed to be. When all else fails, study, don't glance at, the trail map. Aha, I found my present location, about a mile west of the Marble Brook crossing for which I had been aiming.

I knew the AT corridor survey line had to be very close, as the map showed the line at that location to be at the edge of the Breakneck Ridge Road where I now stood, studying that map. I saw what may have been an informal path up a steep gravel bank, which I guessed to be where the line was located. I couldn't see the line.

But I was now determined to find the real 'old jeep road.' 'Ellie' and I headed eastward back up the road to an intersection with another gravel road shown on the map.  On a wooden bridge, we crossed a tiny brook that may actually have been Marble Brook, although with no signs west of the Blanchard crossroads, five miles eastward, there was no way to tell.

If the map was correct, the 'old jeep road' must be a short distance east along the Breakneck Ridge Road. 'Ellie' and I slowly moved in that direction, and there it was, the 'old jeep road,' as obvious as the bog water in my hiking shoes,  It even looked like an 'old jeep road.' I checked its compass, which showed it to correlate with the map direction, due north. I even walked down it a short distance.

The 'old jeep road' had no blowdowns that I could see. This was indeed the 'old jeep road' I wanted, and, if so the AT crossing I also wanted must be somewhere between a half-mile and a mile in on the 'old jeep road.'

Why hadn't I seen it two weeks ago on our way back out Breakneck Ridge Road? (Notice, I didn't write "we," because 'Ellie' can't see all that well despite her ability to negotiate really tough roads.) I hadn't seen it, because once I'd decided that the blowdown-and-boggy-old road was the correct 'old jeep road,' I had stopped looking. I had driven right past the actual 'old jeep road.'

Now, I have two access routes in to my corridor-monitoring section of the AT, a mile in on the AT itself and that distance or less on the 'old jeep road.'

I would have followed the correct 'old jeep road' yesterday, but the heavy dark clouds were becoming more threatening, and a brief shower already had tried to reach me beneath the thick firs and spruce while I had been slogging through the bogging awhile earlier.

Besides, my watch showed it was time for 'Ellie' and I to start meandering home. After all, why solve all the riddles on the same dark, cold afternoon? There will be many other afternoons, later, say next June when the day will be warmer and daylight will last a heck of a lot longer.

Even the rough, rocky Breakneck Ridge Road didn't seem as hazardous on the way home yesterday as 'Ellie' easily negotiated her bumps and steep places.

When I fill out the Maine Appalachian Trail Club corridor-monitor trip work report this week, I won't have to write, "Nothing," as I did last week. This week I can write, "Something, definitely, maybe."

Milton M. Gross Copyright 2008