I remember hearing someone talk about Gulf Hagas in the past and thought nothing of it, and then my company's health department hosted a hike through Gulf Hagas two weeks ago and again thought nothing of it. Last week a co-worker talked about it so I decided to look into it further. They call it "The Grand Canyon of Maine" which like anyone else that has not hiked the Gulf Hagas trail, I pictured the Grand Canyon in my mind and thought, "Yeah right". I checked MaineFoliage.com and saw that the leaf colors were moderate in the area so I talked to Robin about it and we made a date to hike all 8 miles of it (4 miles up and then 4 miles back). We both did not know what to expect other than that there are waterfalls and high ledge walls.

The weather was in the mid-sixties with clear blue skies with no breeze. Upon arriving at 10AM we paid and registered to get in; there were a lot more people hiking that day than I would have expected- I would say in total we saw about 40 people. Once we parked in Pleasant River Parking, I put my boots (not real hiking boots) on, got the Lowepro camera bags out, helped Robin put her backpack on and we headed towards the Pleasant River crossing which was about a mile out. When we arrived at the Gulf Hagas Brook there were a group of high school kids there crossing the ice cold, ankle deep, water. While watching them cross we changed out of our boots and into our sandals- another reason why I love my new Keen sandals, as they are so versatile for things like this. For me, the water was not very cold until the half way point of the river which by estimate was roughly 50' wide; once we reached the middle of the brook it felt like small tacks poking at my skin.

After crossing the river we put out boots back on and made our 1 mile hike to Screw Auger Falls (Map Point 3) which requires a slight deviation off trail to fully view the falls. We climbed down about 10' overt ledge and roots until we reached the plateau of ledge that stands 8' feet above the basin of the waterfalls. In the summer it is probably the safest area to swim if you desire. We made our way to the lower Screw Auger falls which is much larger than the upper. The viewpoint requires you to climb down 40 or so feet of steep terrain that consists of mangled roots and dirt until you reach the bottom or top of the canyon's ledge. From there it felt like I was viewing a scene from Lord of the Rings (Rivendell); the waterfall dips down - I'd estimate around 20'- into a pool of water surrounded by trees that hung over portions of the water. Several areas from where we stood, led to an abrupt and deep canyon 80' down. Any attempt by me at photographing the depth of this was difficult; I'm not sure if it's the lenses that I have or if it's my technique, but it is definitely something you should witness for yourself. After looking around and taking photos for 30 minutes or so we left and continued onwards making our way over the at-the-time smooth, root and ledge free trails. We reached the Hancock lookout, which is basically ledge that provides a narrow view of the gorge; this is where the ledge (I believe it's ledge as I have not been able to verify if it is another mineral/strata) walls rise to their 2-300' heights. We continued on up an incline and then all of the sudden the path stopped; we continued on as the map said a trail was there until we came to a very steep stairway of roots. Being adventurous I climbed down to an area that leveled off for about 3 feet and then a sheer drop to the bottom of the canyon. We decided to head back to the main trail, as there clearly was no discernible path for us to take.

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