We hiked this section on May 20, 2012.
We parked one car at Arden Valley road and then took the other car to the picnic area on the Arden Valley Road. We had a short road walk and then turned left onto the AT at 7:47 AM – there is a maintenance road with a big blue water tower next to the trail head.
After 1.1 gentle miles, we reached the Fingerboard Shelter.
Fingerboard Shelter
This shelter was made of old stone and was very pretty. We saw a group of young kids beyond the shelter but did not see a privy.
We saw blueberries bushes at the top of the ridge and the terrain reminded of us the Rainbow Ledges in Maine. We reached the Long Path after three miles just before 9:30. The sign said the Lemon Squeezer was only 0.6 miles ahead!
We had read & heard about the Lemon Squeezer so we were really both excited to be hiking it ourselves! As we approached it, there was a sign that said “Easy Way” and of course we both said no way.
The "Hard Way"
We walked a couple of paces then looked down the rocks and Python said “I’m taking the easy way.”
At our last Trail Days, Piper’s dad told us that he broke his leg at the Lemon Squeezer during his thru-hike and this ended his hike. So, Python had no problem taking the easy way and by the way there was also a white blaze on the easy route. Dirigo sat down to attempt to side down but it just wasn’t happening.
We are both small so we did not have to take off our packs in the Lemon Squeezer. The top part is slanted so you are kind of forced against the right wall.
Dirigo in Lemon Squeezer
About a half an hour later we reached Island Pond Road and wondered if it was okay to go swimming in it?
We started seeing more day hikers so we knew that we were getting close to the parking lot.