Tough Cookie checks out the view over Gorham.
“Holy cow, ack! Get it away! Kill it!”
Through rain and wind and long, hard miles, nature tested Janelle and she has passed. She’s held newts and studied slugs and heard the terrifying flapping of nearby grouse, but those encounters have only made her more interested.
But not this.
The half-dollar sized Wolf Spider plodding across her pack is too much. The spider’s hairy legs bristle in the wind. It’s so big, I can see its eyes. And it does not seem to care one whit about the two humans shrieking at the top of their lungs; Janelle yelling for me to kill it, me trying to calm her down and get a picture of the thing because it moves so fast.
It really is big, the largest spider I have seen in the Northeast. Wolf Spiders do have a bite, but they aren’t dangerous. This one, though, looks like a mini-tarantula.
Finally, after we both calm down, Janelle finds a stick and I’m able to lift the thing off her pack and put it on the ground so we can get a good look.
“There, see, we don’t have to kill it,” I say, only partly believing myself that the spider isn’t going to leap up and attack at any moment.
So we get down on the rock and watch the creature power its way over the ledge, seeming to know exactly where it’s going. When a particularly strong breeze hits the spider, it bunches up its legs, making itself harder to knock over.
Janelle is curious, but this is no toad. After a while, she’s had enough and drifts away, calm enough to know that this Wolf spider won’t do her any harm, but not so certain that another one, lurking somewhere, may be the one that does her in.
For a picture of the Wolf Spider, click here: Our little friend
The Adventures of Buffalo and Tough Cookie 
Wolf spiders are THE creepiest, ugliest, nastiest things! UCK!!!!!!! I’d have paid you guys to squash him! (Glad he didn’t chase you both off of the mountain! lol)
Haha, he was a big fella for sure, Nancy! But we stood our ground LOL
One of those started crawling up the leg of my shorts while I was sitting on a rock on Washington one year. Janelle should have heard me shriek and seen me stand up fast so it would fall back out on the rocks. I like wildlife, but spiders really aren’t my favorite!!!
Oh yeah, I think if we had found it on our person, either of us would have freaked out!