Maine 2017 – Mt. Katahdin

8/30/17

The primary objective of the days at Baxter State Park was the hiking of Mt. Katahdin, the Northern end of the Appalachian Trail. We chose to ascend via Abol Trail since that’s where our camp was. Abol is a bit shorter, but steeper than Hunt Trail from what we were able to find. We got a very early start (for us at least) heading up the mountain by 8:00. I was a bit paranoid about the time and making it to the top given some of our previous adventures and the various warnings in the printed material. Turns out, the timing was a bit excessive.  I think we got to the peak just before noon and given how late it was in the season, there really was no ‘hot’ part of the day to avoid.  Also, the pictures we took of the trail map were wholly unnecessary since the trial was obvious the entire time.

It was fun, but also a bit disheartening, to see all the AT through hikers finishing that day having their little celebrations at the top – some brought pizza, some brought beer, special shirts for photos. A couple kids (not through hikers) brought 4-person pot pies (1 each) that they ate cold. It was discouraging only because it kind of dwarfed our day-hike accomplishment kind of like we cheated and jumped straight to the finale.

On our descent, we took the side-trail that went to Abol falls. It was a pretty easy, flat trail, but the falls were not as grand as Katahdin Falls from the day before.  Still worth a few pictures.

We once again took a quick drive / side hike to scope out a new pond for moose and bear with no luck.  We did spend a bit of time hiking around (and getting slightly lost).  We didn’t have any fancy food, long ago eaten anything needing refrigeration, but we had some wood leftover from the previous night and gathered a bit more to have a second night of wine and bonfire in camp.

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About norconkm

I'm a person. I live in Grand Rapids, MI and work as an Electrical Engineer. My hobbies at the time of this writing are kayaking, skiing, archery, photography and maybe biking. As this is my personal blog, my hobbies are likely the primary topics about which you will be reading.

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