The May issue of Backpacker magazine just arrived. So there was no other option but to sit down immediately and read it from cover-to-cover. It's just what you do. With a cold beer of course (duh!).

One of the features this month is called "America's Hardest Dayhikes." Fifty of the "roughest, meanest, gnarliest" hikes in the U.S.

Geez, guys. Madison Avenue has really got hold of you, haven't they.

Well, as it happens, Backpacker has rated the Bigelow Range Traverse here in the great State of Maine as #10 hardest dayhike in the entire country.

That's certainly a nice honor to bestow on us Maine hikers. Thanks. I sure do get a kick out of how much of a big deal they make of it though.

The article talks about Maine's "infamous black flies." Whoa. 100% DEET baby. No problem. And the relentlessly steep and rocky trail. Uh, excuse me, that's just about any trail in Maine's mountains. How the trail "gets ruthless on the fierce 1/2 mile climb up South Horn." Geez, I've run up South Horn in my Tevas for both sunset and sunrise, with a cup of tea in hand, and never thought a thing of it.

I guess here in Maine we're just plain used to steep, rocky, rooty, wet, muddy, exposed, downright awful climbs. That's just what we do. That's hiking in Maine and we love it.

Guess that makes us some kinda rough, mean and gnarly hiking hombries, now don't it? Yep, don't mess with us boys, or they'll be a-trouble!

What's your take on the hardest dayhike in Maine? Is it Bigelow, or some place else.

I'd vote for the Keep Ridge up Pamola, across Knife Edge to the summit of Katahdin, over Hamlin Peak, out across the Northwest Plateau, down to Russell Pond and back out to Roaring Brook. I did that a few years back and damn near died. But it was a heckuva a lot of fun!