This weekend was so yummy it was sinful. The absolute only thing I would change is maybe add a little more downtime because I'm exhausted today. But what the hell, you can sleep when you're dead, right?
It started off with a 4 day trip to Mt. Katahdin in Maine. Mt. Katahdin is the highest peak in Maine, 2nd highest in New England...but of course, as a girl from the Rockies, I do tend to say "psht, you call that a hike?" to anything New England has to offer. Well, consider me corrected. Katahdin definitely has a Rockies feel. It's stark, grand, and hard as hell. You don't struggle with the altitude since it's only 5300 ft at the top, but the ascent from where we started (Roaring Brook Campground) was 4000, rather steep, feet. Which, uh, turned out to be hard. I'd almost say as hard as you can get for a day hike in terms of distance and terrain without getting into actual rock climbing.
The campground itself is pristine, with absolutely no overcrowding. No showers, but well maintained outhouses kept things somewhat civilized. I would highly, highly recommend staying there if you do want to camp/hike Baxter State Park, but the catch is that you have to make reservations in early January.
So, we arrived on Thursday, set up camp (which had the precision of a military operation thanks to A. having done the trip fro 7 years running. I was like, "ooooh that's clever!" every 30 seconds. He was like "haven't you camped before?" I was like, "mmm yes, but ah, you do it so very well." And then I batted my eyes. It never hurts to suck up to the man with the good equipment and a big, mmm, pack.
The next morning we dragged our butts out of bed at 5am so that we could get started at 6am. The hike we were planning is 10.5 miles long, and usually takes people 10-12 hours to complete. We had a couple of complete newbs in the group though, so we wanted to err on the safe side. As you will see shortly, coming back in the dark would not be good possible without a headlamp, and even then very unsafe. You aren't allowed on the mountain without a headlamp/flashlight anyway.
So, onto the good stuff. As I said, the route we took is 10.5 miles. It can be broken into 4 sections:
- The hike from the campground to Chimney Pond, a glacial pond at the bottom of the basin that the Katadin range forms. 3.3 miles each way.
- The hike from the pond to Pamona peak, which is east of the real peak, Baxter. The trail is called Dudley, or, in my words, "Yet another fucking boulder? Enough with the boulders." Only 1.2 miles, but it felt like it was 1.2 miles straight up.
- The hike from Pamona, through the Chimney Notch, which requires a bit of real rock climbing and scared the shit out of people who are afraid of heights, to the Chimney Peak, and then on across the Knife's Edge to Baxter Peak. ~1 mile
- The final section was on a "trail" called Saddle. I use trail in the loosest sense of the term. Whoever came to the top of this and was like, "that looks like a great place to descend!" was not thinking clearly. 0.5 mile scree, then 1.75 endless miles of bouldering. Saddle brings you back to the pond and then it's the last 3.3 back home.
This next part is going to be picture intensive, so I'll split it...
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