Gravel pits.

The quintessential Maine campsite.

On any given weekend from spring through fall you'll find pick-up trucks, campers and cars tucked into gravel pits; chairs set out, fires blazing, drinks in hand.

It's what we do. A part of our heritage. And it saves us money on them fancy type campgrounds.

Besides, you can create more of a ruckus in a remote gravel pit than somewhere more civilized. And don't we enjoy that!

Anyway, a gravel pit was just where me and my trail buddy D-man found ourselves one evening late last week. Right up near the Appalachian Trail, where we maintain contiguous sections of the hallowed footpath.

A gravel pit camp somewhere up north.

Evening campfire.

And after a fun night of gravel-pitting, we did just that: got out the chainsaw and clippers and fire rake and headed off to clear some 5 miles of the AT. Our summer check-in to see that all is well out there.

We took to my section first, removing 24 blowdowns as we went. The humidity was rough and we sweated our way out to the beautiful sand beach at East Carry Pond.

Dana (right) and AT thru-hiker "Just Gene", a Lewiston native.

The sandy beach at Easy Carry Pond on "my" section of trail.

There we jettisoned the gear and went for a cooling swim before finishing up and doubling back to the truck to have a beer and refill on gas and oil.

Southbound now, the bridges across Arnold Bog were still askew from the heavy rains this year. But we managed to shore them up well enough so it wasn't so much of a funhouse-style experience, with shaky planks ready to dump hikers and their heavy packs into the swamp.

We continued on, me sawing away with my trusty Husky and D-man going hard cleaning out those those water bars.

It was all good honest fun until I got my saw pinched in a downed beech tree and the afternoon rains let loose.

It took some chopping with a hand ax and some grunting and groaning, but we finally got my saw free.

Time to call it a day. And we did (after getting my saw unstuck, of course).

Dana headed home while I headed up to the river. The Kennebec River, that is. For a weekend of whitewater rafting and general river debauchery in The Forks.

More on that to come...