December 2nd - 7pm Virtual Meeting
MOAC will always make the health and well-being of our members and the community our top priority. Please stay tuned for updates and guidance regarding our meetings and activities. Thanks!
December General Meeting
The John Muir Trail with Tim Bickford
and even MORE
Join us as Tim Bickford takes us on the adventure of the John Muir Trail in the fall of 2019.

Tim will take us through the entire experience from what it takes to get to Yosemite National Park and get a permit to hike one of the most famous trails in the United States.

Tim will cover everything from gear, how to plan food, where to camp, and of course the journey itself with breathtaking views.

————

Tim Bickford lives in Limington and is a self-employed pilot/timber framer/engineer/designer with a lifelong attraction to being a ski and hiking bum. He lives in his shop/hangar at Limington airport with his dog and hiking companion Maggie (although sadly not on the JMT). His work allows him several free months a year to fill his passions. He’s currently building out a van for winter and summer base camp.
Building A Snow Cave (a quinzhee)
With Phil Poirier

One of MOAC'S originals, Phil Poirier, will give a brief presentation on snowcave building (also known as quinzhees). Phil started winter camping in 1980, with some of his trips leading into central Quebec, and even one featuring a snowshoe into Labrador, from Quebec.

Phil is an original MOACer and was featured on Bill Green's Maine in a segment on snowcave building.
First Aid Tips
With Tony Wilson

Whether you were a Scout or not, "Be Prepared" can never steer you wrong. Tony will briefly talk about first aid when out adventuring. Being cool, calm, and collected in the face of adversity is always good. But so is having an idea of what to do.
Last Month's Presentation
The Business of Land Trusts with Dick Jarrett
If there were no land trusts, where would you go for a quick hike or ski or snowshoe? If there were no land trusts, would there be as much woods as there is now. If there were no land trusts, how different would your life be? Land trusts are everywhere.

Dick Jarrett, Treasurer of the Francis Small Heritage Trust, joined us to talk about land trusts, how they work, how you can help, and how they have become a major conservation force in the community.

The Trust owns 1472 acres and holds easements on an additional 308 acres. The Trust holds land in northern York County, southern Oxford County and western Cumberland County in Maine.
Important Financial Information From The Board
Fellow MOAC'ERS.

DUES INCREASE: As of January 1, 2021, annual membership dues will increase $5 from $20 to $25 for individual and from $30 to $35 for family memberships. Per our exalted treasurer this will provide for many years of financial stability. Feel free to renew now if your membership will expire in 2020 or early 2021 at the old dues rate.

ADDITIONAL SAVINGS IN THE PIPELINE: The club is in the process of changing how members are notified that they are due for renewal. For years, you have received a reminder postcard. We will soon be switching to an email renewal system. This will save us money over the cost of the postcard, postage, and the service that provides this. This will also save hours of volunteer work by club members.

You may receive test emails that says this and you can disregard them. When the message changes to say your membership is up for renewal, please take that one seriously. The new system will send a reminder 30 days out, then 14 days if you haven't renewed, and finally a reminder the day before your membership is set to expire.
To Post or not to Post
Is that the Question?
BY PETER MULLEN

It’s the stuff of legend. Random people are drawn to an opportunity offered by a complete stranger. The ball starts rolling and gets bigger and bigger as momentum grows. The result? MOAC!

That ad in the paper looking for people to go hiking with was noticed. And it is the cornerstone of the best club in Maine. For over 30 years we’ve hiked, biked, paddled, skied, and who knows what else, all the while meeting new people, growing the club and creating a “world” unlike any other. MOAC is unique.

Think about how you met people you now consider good friends. How did you meet them? At a trailhead in the White Mountains? In a parking lot and a herd of bicycles? At a boat ramp clogged with canoes and kayaks? For how many years have you enjoyed that friendship?

It’s the lifeblood of the club. It’s how we grow. It’s how we replace people who move away or change their interests. Without it, the club will not survive. Right now, with the pandemic and the inability to host in-person monthly meetings, or Happy Hours, it is pretty much the only way to spread the word and grow.

But there has been a trend growing for a while. To not post events to the calendar. To not welcome strangers to the activity. Yes, COVID has changed how we approach life in many ways, and that is completely understandable, but this is a trend that easily pre-dates the pandemic. While the calendar looks sparse (which isn’t a good look for the club), Facebook is alive with pictures of adventures.

Can I ask why?

Yes, be careful. Yes, be cautious. Control and manage your trips to the level you feel comfortable. But more stuff on the calendar leads more people to join us and more people to lead things. Making your adventures available to others might mean you will meet the next person you will cherish 10 years from now. And it will lead to the survival of MOAC.

When you meet someone new on your next hike, bike, paddle, or ski, think back about your MOAC family members and the day you met them. It’s what MOAC is all about!
Welcome New Members
Tim Bickford
Torin Brown
Denise Church
Ginger Dowling
Anna Fialkoff
Dominique Gabel
H Landis Gabel
Andrew Gaudette
Steven Lailer
Miriam Leonard
Christophe rMann
Missy Mans
Alexa McCallum
Teague Owings
Kelly Patrick
Patricia Peterson
Michele Reagan
Lauren Sangster
Katherine van Hengel
James Vicenzi
Polly Weidhas
President's Corner
When Handed Lemons.......
Well it’s that time of year again, facing the holidays. If you’re reading this, you’re not out buying gifts or turkeys. Maybe you got your firewood in and poured antifreeze in the RV toilet already … or maybe not and it froze splitting the pipes and you just don’t care anymore. 

The relief of having the election over, or almost, is palatable and exhilarating. Ready to take the new chapter of COVID head-on, grab the bull by the horns. But, after a moment’s thought, ... you think the whole thing in reality, looks lousy and sucks.  

Well Pilgrim, these are the cards we’ve been dealt. OK. What can we do? Dream? What if it’s going to be a year like this? This is plan “B” time. Build an ice boat! Yes! We can have it done before the lakes freeze and we are forever happy again! Actually, I got introduced to this sport through MOAC some years ago, and did build one. For most of us, however, hiking is the go-to answer in this season. As far as I am concerned, fall is premier hiking season. One can argue we’ve lost so many avenues for recreation and just plain social sanity maintenance. It’s like being fired from a job. Shock and loss is the knee jerk reaction. But! ... Rise above this. Such things inherently give rise to new opportunity. A little rethinking and creativity is in order, maybe a lot. Worlds change and great fortunes are made in time of crisis.  

Be on the winning side!

Dan Kidd, President
Attention: Renewing Members Take Note
Two items Membership would like to pass on:

  1. RENEWING YOUR MEMBERSHIP - For the best and most timely service, please consider renewing online. Many factors can cause an interruption in your membership if you mail in a check. How close to your membership expiration did you mail it? And the process on our end involves a volunteer trekking into Portland to get the mail, then sending the payment to a volunteer to process that, and also another volunteer to update your membership. Doing it online does all of this automatically and instantaneously. It is safe and secure.
  2. MEMBERSHIP CARDS - With the Board decision to eliminate the MOAC phone service, new membership cards were needed without the phone number. While we wait for these to arrive, there might be a delay in you receiving new card(s).

If you have any questions about your membership, please contact membership@moac.org.

$1000 off one-time membership fee for MOAC members
207-331-5374
 
Four locations in Maine!

On Casco Bay - Fore Points Marina | 58 Fore St, Portland
Yarmouth Boat Yard | 72 Lafayette St, Yarmouth
Sunset Marina | 231 Front St, South Portland

Sebago Lakes Region - Moose Landing Marina | 32 Moose Landing Trail, Naples
Trip Stories
Take Pride in Acadia Day
BY PETER MULLEN

Friends of Acadia was planning on making a big deal of it. The 30th Take Pride Day. But COVID had other plans. So instead of 400 people gathering at Park HQ to go out and rake leaves, then enjoy a lunch together, it morphed into just under 200 with social distancing groups getting as much done as possible under the circumstances.

MOAC has been well-represented over the years with a varying number of participants each November. Go figure, 2020 turned out to be the best MOAC turnout yet.

11 MOACers met at the Bubble Pond parking lot on a warm Saturday to give a morning back to Acadia National Park. Our assigned area started at the Carriage Road intersection at the south end of Eagle Lake. We worked our way up the west side as far we could in the allotted time. The group cleared the leaves from the shoulders and culverts for .6 miles.

Once done with the duty, club members adventured off to hike and bike. About half the group enjoyed the Bar Harbor Lobster Company, outdoors, for a safe dinner. A couple of members drove up for the day, one lives on the island, and the rest "camped" at the Bar Harbor Grand Hotel.

There was more adventuring Sunday morning before heading home.

The first Saturday in November is always Take Pride in Acadia Day. Hopefully 2021 will have a tinge of normalcy. But we had no complaints about how this year turned out.
Food For Thought
THANKSGIVING DINNER IN A DUTCH OVEN

INGREDIENTS
1.5 pound(s) sliced turkey, shredded
1 cans cut green beans, drained
1/2 can whole baby carrots
2 jars turkey gravy
2 boxes cornbread stuffing
1/4 c butter

DIRECTIONS
1. Before leaving for camping, cook a small turkey and shred.
2. Butter the bottom and sides of the dutch oven. Pour green beans in first. Add carrots on top. Layer the shredded turkey on top of carrots and green beans. Pour gravy over the two layers. Mix cornbread stuffing according to package directions and add on top of the ingredients and press down to cover the layers in dutch oven. Cut any remaining butter into pats and place on top of stuffing mix.
3. Place over hot coals and shovel some coals on top of the dutch oven. Allow to cook for 20 – 30 minutes until hot and bubbly and the stuffing has browned on top.

A Newsletter Plea!!
This newsletter is for you, and by definition BY you. After all, YOU are MOAC. Without MOAC, there would be no newsletter. We can alway use:

  • Pictures
  • News
  • Letters to the Editor
  • Trip Stories
  • Poetry
  • Celebrate friends' milestones (birthdays, achievements, celebrations, condolences)

Email the editor to submit. By the end of the meeting week to ensure enough time to process.

Thank you!
Advertise in the Newsletter
Do you own a small business? Work for one? Have a side hustle? Do you have a garage/attic/basement full of gear to thin out? Do you want to get the word out about it? If so, advertise in the newsletter!

Your message will be in the inbox of the MOAC faithful every month. click HERE for more information or contact Maryann McLaughlin.
Flashback!
This entry is from November, 1990

The Bigelow Traverse
By PHIL POIRIER

"Hot Town Summer in the City" Oct. 6-8

Carey and I planned this trip thinking that we'd encounter typical Fall weather... cold , maybe rainy , and well past peak leaf peeping season. All these factors we thought, would keep the numbers of people on the mountain this weekend down. Wrong! Instead we found ourselves traveling into the height of foliage season on a holiday weekend with the interior temps, pushing close to the eighties. Needless to say, we were not alone on the mountain.

Undismayed by these factors, 12 overnighters and 4 dayhikers set out for Bigelow Col . We tried our best to get up on the mountain early in anticipation of the hordes of people with similar intentions. Good God weren't it hot on that hike up! We managed to find just enough room for our group at the col, with 32 people staying overnight in the area. It was suggested that the scene was reminiscent of a civil war encampment.

We went for a dusk hike up to the top of Avery Peak to watch the moonrise, which we greeted with a cheer and a toast to the spirit of the place. Despite being buffetted by the wind, (It was intense... we estimated it to be a steady 40 mph gusting to 60) a large number of us stayed on top for well over an hour, sharing an indescribable moment of community.

After a warm, windy, moonlit night we decamped at a leisurely pace and hiked up to the West Peak (with a group photo session on the top) and over to Horns Pond. Shorts and short sleeves proved fashionable, as once again the temps were Indian Summer-like. Many of us chose to catch sun and lunch on either North or South Horn, both of which overlook the pond. At Horns Pond we managed to grab one of the shelters, and enough tent space for our group. Horns Pond is a lovely mountain tarn bordered on one side by jutting cliffs.

I kept trying to capture a sense of solitude there, but this was just not to be the weekend for it. I estimated that there were probably 40 people and five dogs staying on Sunday night. Monday morning began cooler and cloudy with sprinkles hinting at rain. Climbing up to the cliffs from the pond we stopped for the overlooking view into the valley. On this day we were truly above the clouds as a layer of undercast had settled into the valley, muting the forest to soft pastels. We hiked back out on the Appalachian Trail, making a transition from the deep green darkness of Spruce/Fir and moss, into the cadmium intensity of hardwoods at peak foliage. A magical way to finish our hike.

To complete our trip we had a solid and reasonably priced meal at Cathy's (not to be confused with Cathy's III) in Stratton, with excellent coffee and homemade desserts. I want to thank everyone that went on this trip for their company and patience. I feel proud of the numbers of people in MOAC willing to undertake such trips...and I know there are many more to come!
Posting Trips with COVID-19
The posting of trips can resume with the following guidelines:

  • Do not post trips, or attend them if you feel it takes you out of your comfort zone. The board understands it will take time for things to ramp up to whatever "normal" will now be.
  • Please try to avoid "Show and Go" trips as it can lead to unexpected numbers and tend to be less organized. It is more of a pain, but the board feels it is important. We do realize that it can depend on the kind of trip it is. Boats on the water social distance by design.
  • Please post Member Only trips for the time being. Again, better control and few, if any surprises.
  • Please limit trip size to reasonable numbers. Of course, that can vary from trip to trip.
  • Know the rules of where you want to go. Research ahead of time to make sure the trail or land is open. Obey closed signs.
  • Practice social distancing
  • Avoid carpooling
  • Aprés trip gatherings. If it isn't outdoors with plenty of space, you might want to reconsider it.
  • Be prepared to wear a mask and follow whatever rules are presented wherever the group ends up

If you don't feel well, STAY HOME.

Be safe, be well, and BE SMART!
AMC: Here's how to Return Outdoors Safely
Please check out the Appalachian Mountain Club's guide to "getting back to normal" when it comes to the Great Outdoors and COVID-19.

The piece offers advice on how AMC is handling the restarting of activities as well has how to carry them off safely. You will also find important links for federal agencies like the National Park Service as well as resources by state.

Click HERE to check out the resources offered.
Thanksgiving Ode
By JAMES MCINTYRE

            September came and with it frost
            The season's pasture it seemed lost,
            And the wondrous yield of corn
            Of its green beauty it was shorn.

            Frost it came like early robber,
            But gentle rains came in October,
            Which were absorbed by grateful soil;
            With green once more the pastures smile.

            And cows again are happy seen
            Enjoying of the pastures green,
            And flow of milk again they yield
            From the sweet feed of grassy field.

            And we have now a fine November,
            Warmer far than in September;
            The apple, which is queen of fruits,
            Was a good crop and so is roots.

            The rains they did replenish springs,
            And it gratitude to each heart brings,
            When we reflect on bounteous season,
           For grateful feelings all have reason.
For Time At The Wood Stove
Along the Edge of America. By Peter Jenkins. Mariner Books; Illustrated edition, 1997, 320 pages. ISBN-13: 978-0395877371. Price $15.33 (hardcover)
The Impossible First: From Fire to Ice―Crossing Antarctica Alone by Colin O'Brady. Scribner; Illustrated edition, 2020, 304 pages. ISBN-13: 978-1982133115. Price $18.99 (hardcover)
The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America. By Douglas Brinkley. Harper Perennial; Illustrated edition, 2010, 960 pages. ISBN: 978-0060565312. Price $21.50 (paperback)
Remember the Leave No Trace Principles
  • Plan ahead and prepare.
  • Travel and camp on durable surfaces.
  • Dispose of waste properly.
  • Leave what you find.
  • Minimize campfire impacts (be careful with fire).
  • Respect wildlife.
  • Be considerate of other visitors.
Mount Roberts
Moultonborough, NH
Wolfe's Neck Woods State Park
Freeport, ME
Member Benefits and Discounts
Your annual dues do much more than just plug you into the greatest group of people Maine has to offer. Please check out the links below to see what else your membership does. The Board is always looking for new discounts and opportunities for members as well as to make sure the list is accurate. Please let the Board know if you find an error or want to suggest a possible addition.

Please login to MOAC first.


Other links of importance:

Bangor/DownEast?
While MOAC no longer has an official chapter in Bangor, that doesn't change the fact MOAC is there. It would be great to have an official active group to serve Down East, and if you are interested in starting one back up, please email the Board.

The chapter in Bangor had monthly meetings just like Portland, held at Epic Sports.

Short of that, there is an email address and Message Board category to serve that purpose. The email address is: bangor_area@moac.org. Please use both options to organize events in that area of the state.
Every day is an Adventure
Join us to find yours!
We are fortunate to be part of this organization MOAC. A diverse outdoors club that's been around since 1989 and welcomes newcomers of all ages and experience. If you're new or thinking about joining, please do. As an ALL-VOLUNTEER Club, our members organize and voluntarily lead all trips and activities from beginner to expert. From strenuous mountain hikes, or as part of the MOAC Trek Across Maine Team, to casual conversational-pace bike rides along the Eastern Trail, after-work city or beach walks or a gentle sail in Casco Bay, to overnight ocean kayaking paddle trips, weekend camping outings to Acadia, Baxter and one of the Maine Huts, MOAC members post their outdoor adventure ideas on their online calendar. “Join MOAC to challenge yourself, share your outdoor skills and meet other outdoor adventurers!” www.moac.org
Share Your Adventures
Get photos of your trip
in the newsletter or shown on the big screen at the
General Meeting

Email photos to
photos@moac.org

Email your trip
stories to
editor@moac.org
Contacting MOAC
info@moac.org
MOAC is a non-profit 501c7 organization serving the outdoor community in the state of Maine. As such the organization is governed by the following set of Bylaws.

Mission Statement

  • To facilitate the pursuit of amateur outdoor activities of all types for persons of all skill levels.
  • To provide a structure for public awareness (i.e. safety, conservation, and environmental awareness).
  • To provide an outlet for public service activities.
  • To provide a structure for social networking and community building. MOAC is and shall remain a non-affiliated organization