Kathleen and I hiked Mt. Katadhin, the northern terminus of the Appalachian, and 50 miles of the “100 Mile Wilderness” from June 21 – June 25.

Saturday, June 21 2014

We hiked Katahdin on the Hunt trail (which is also the Appalachian Trail), 5.3 miles from Katadhin Stream. As expected for the elevation change, there is a huge range on foliage and climate from the bottom to the top. Both were beautiful but the top had spectacular views of the surrounding area. There was snow visible but fortunately not on trail. No one had been able to hike up the day before we hiked due to a snow storm and high winds. The initial mile of trail wasn’t difficult and was pretty as we climbed up past a waterfall and rapids. The next bit was more challenging and then it was “OMG” hard with needing to use hands to hoist oneself up and crawl up on the rocks.

There were support rebar assists on several locations and they were certainly needed. Then one comes up to the “tableland” over a mile of relatively flat area with no trees and little scrub – a tundra. I couldn’t but Kathleen was even running on this section. (They had part of the trail roped off so that hikers wouldn’t damage the fragile plant growth.)

Kathleen was a “rock star”, being quite nimble on the rocks.

It was a tough climb but the views on the top were great!

There were still moderate sized regions of snow visible despite the June 21 date of our climb. The Hunt trail hadn’t even been open on Memorial Day.

Great views even if the pictures don’t show it.

We pushed it going up and got to the top in 3 hours 30 minutes but as many folks know, I struggle on the downs with my knee issues and it took us 4 hours and 45 minutes to return. Next time, I will wear long pants and gloves, not for the changing temps and the cold on top but for some protection against the rocks. We passed a bunch of folks on the way up and no one passed us but on the way down, we were passed by a bunch of folks and passed almost no one.

I’m guessing that the first 1 ½ miles took us about 45 minutes and the last 1 ½ miles took 45 minutes and it took us about 2 hours to do the middle 2 miles while working hard. The way down was worse with some sections probably ½ mile per hour due to all the times I needed to sit down to lower myself down to the next set of rocks down. Very nice views all the way. Bugs were not a problem until we stopped after finishing and spent 15 minutes chatting with folks whom we’d passed and then they passed us and then we passed them back on the easier section at the bottom. We each got about a dozen bites in those 15 minutes and none if the prior 8 + hours.

We’ve done Mt. Washington as well and found them to be overall relatively equivalent. Mt. Washington is relatively consistent with a steady amount of difficulty (fairly hard) all the way up and back. My Katadhin has areas that are only moderate difficulty but then other areas that are quite difficult/ at the edge of what we could do. We talked to several people later who had never been able to do Katadhin due to the difficulty. Probably Katadhin is more difficult due to the extreme difficulty on those sections.

June 22

Logistics in this area were a bit complicated since we are not allowed to park a car overnight in Baxter Park without being in the park itself. They also only have limited “Day Use Parking Reservations”. One can only make a reservation two weeks in advance and the reservation can be lost if you don’t enter the park by 7 am. (The park opens at 6 am.) For the Katadhin hike, it wasn’t an issue but for the next day’s hike it was more complicated. We had made our reservation but then needed to drive into the park with two cars ($14 each) to drop off the one car and then drive back to the our start at Abol Bridge. This actually went quite smoothly.

We hiked from Abol Bridge to Katadhin Stream, the northernmost 10 miles of the “100 mile wilderness”. This was intended to be a relatively easy “recovery” day after Katahdin and it was although it had its own adventures. They had had weather the prior week and the trail was a bit soggy.

One of my favorite pics from the trip. This is a picture of Kathleen while exiting this “soggy” part of the trail. (I’d already come out of the water and turned around to take the shot. Earlier it was fully up to her hips and even got my underwear wet!!) Evidently Katahdin stream had overflowed its banks and since part of the trail was under the level of the river, it filled in with water. The area drains and when folks hiked through the next day it was only a couple inches over the knee – the day after that – not even knee high.

Katahdin Stream itself is quite pretty and we hiked along some nice sections with some creek crossings.

As one might guess though, we did encounter a few bugs along the trail as can be guessed from this picture. Overall, we finished this 10 mile section in about 4 hours and saw only one hiker after a ton of folks on Katahdin. I spent the afternoon/ early evening getting ready for our first backpacking adventure.

Monday, June 23 Pollywog Stream to Hurds Brook Lean-to (14 miles)

Until this trip, Kathleen had never tent camped and while I had tent camped a number of times for trail runs, I hadn’t backpacked and tented overnight since 1977. With my back and knee issues, I’ve been leery of doing this but wanted to try it to get a sense of how things could work for a future through hike. I am hoping to keep my pack down to 20 pounds or so. We just had a small 2-man which weighed about 3 pounds, then the sleeping bag and my pack – probably about 9 pounds there. I carried clothes for both of us but Kathleen carried her own sleeping bag which we attached to her day pack with bungie cords. I also carried the second-day food, first aid stuff, a filter for purifying drinking water, and lights. We both carried a lot of water, probably too much, since we didn’t have to filter any water at all in the two-day hike.

Logistics for this were a bit different again. We’d left one car at the Abol Bridge AT parking lot when we hiked the 10 miles back to the other car at Katahdin Stream. We drove in on Jo Mary road, a private road run by a lumber company, paid them $48 to stay for the four days that the cars would be there and then drove about 28 miles to the intersection of the AT with Jo Mary road at the Polly wog Stream parking area. There was only room to park one car but we were the only ones there and so we took the spot and started hiking with fairly full packs – about 20 – 25 pounds for me and 10 – 15 pounds for Kathleen. (We each had 3 liters of water and then we had two full Gatorade bottles.) This was our first foray at this, we wanted to make things as easy as cold be reasonable. The goal was to hike 14 miles on relatively easy terrain to reach the Hurd Brook Lean-to and then hike the 4 miles out in the morning to reach the car at Abol Bridge. This would give us most of Tuesday to sort out and fix anything that might have gone wrong on Monday’s hike in prep for a bigger push on Wednesday/ Thursday (24 miles instead of 18 miles).

The hike was great. We’d met only one hiker on Sunday but there were 20 of us on Monday. Since it wasn’t a push day for us, we chatted for quite a bit and spent about 1 to 1 ½ hours chatting with folks. All but one were thru-hikers on their way down from Katahdin to Springer Mountain, Georgia. Although the rocks and especially the roots made the footing uneven, there was very little climbing or descending so the day was fairly easy despite the packs. There were very distinct

vegetation areas along the trail – the stream

then we hit Rainbow Lake

and then followed with a climb up to a “bald” with tundra like features.

Although we could have spent the night in the lean-to, it wasn’t raining and we figured that we’d set up the tent to keep the bugs out. Even though we didn’t have any cushions for our sleeping bags, there was enough cushioning with them that we both slept pretty well. Dinner was just some canned chicken with bagels but it actually tasted pretty good! We had fun chatting with the three other hikers at the shelter and turned in when the sun set.

The heavier packs had certainly slowed us down – it took 8 hrs 15 minutes to go 14 miles but actual walking time was about 7 hours. However, they certainly hadn’t stopped us and while it was great to take the packs off for lunch and at the end of the day, it had worked out ok.

Tuesday, June 24 4-mile hike from Hurd Creek Lean-to to Abol Bridge

We got up early. I got up earlier than Kathleen – about 4:45 – when the sun came up. Kathleen got up about 5:15 or so. The group of two was out by 5:30. We left about 6:15 or so and the other guy had already packed up most of his stuff when we left. It only took us about 1 ½ hours to do the four miles as the trail was very

easy but it was nice to see the bridge and get back to the car. That meant that we were back to the car by 7:45 am and only had to get ready for the next day. We went into town and had brunch at the “AT Café”. Through-hikers who finish get to write their names on the ceiling tile for their year of completion. It was a great, relaxed brunch with friendly folks and good food. We couldn’t check back into the hotel until 1 pm so we just hung out at the hotel and luckily got into our room at 11 am. That allowed us to get cleaned up and ready for our bigger hiking event. We thought that Monday and Tuesday had gone pretty well but then we checked the weather forecast and the terrain. The forecast was for 60% chance of rain all day on Wednesday with thundershowers on Wednesday night and 70% chance of rain on Thursday. Ugh!! But we were feeling pretty good from our earlier success and actually found out that several folks in our hotel had tried to climb Katahdin and couldn’t do it.

Kathleen said that she was up to the hiking on Wednesday but wanted to try to do the whole thing on Wednesday rather than sleep out in a thunderstorm. I was willing to try this as well since I was concerned that we might not get space in the Wadleigh Pond Lean-to and would indeed have to camp out. Finding a spot that wasn’t in puddles of water might be difficult so I was willing to give it a go but said that we’d have to pack up as though to camp out so that if the terrain was bad or we were just slow, that we’d still have the ability to camp out and get out of the weather to some degree. I also saw that we could cut off one mile of the distance if it was getting close to dark which would give us some buffer. My goal was to get out of the Wadleigh Pond Lean-to no later than 5 pm. This shelter was 18 miles into the hike. I knew that we should be able to get there comfortably before dark but it was another 6 miles to the car and there was a short, steep mountain to climb first (about 700 ft in half a mile). Although this was much further than all but two of the other hikers were doing we’d done the 14 miles easily in 8 hours.

We decided to skip the hotel breakfast and get to the gate at Jo Mary road when it opened at 6 am so that we could get as early a start as possible. (Having the hotel in a strip mall which had a grocery store and a pizza shop made dinner very easy – salads from the grocery store and sandwiches from the pizza place.)

Wednesday, June 25

We got up early and made it to the gate by 5:50 am. The lady was there early and was even kind enough to let us through even though her work day hadn’t started yet. It was drizzling lightly but not too bad yet.

The early start meant that we were on trail by 6:30 (11 miles from the gate on a dirt road). We parked about a quarter mile from the trailhead since there was room on a side road and no parking space on the main road. (I’d already asked the road management folk if that was ok and they said yes and that it was what they’d recommend.) The early part of the trail was really quite pleasant despite the drizzle. We’d both decided to wear jackets and long pants to minimize the bug problems. Although we were using the sprays, the bug density was intense. The clothes and sprays worked to keep those areas relatively bug free and we were much better off than some of the other hikers. We could see that it was pretty although I didn’t take many pictures even though the rain had tapered off. We were glad to run into most of the other hikers although we didn’t chat with them very much due to our own time pressures. It was still good to chat a small bit – found out that we were the “talk of the shelter” due to our two-car process. It was also good since it meant that they weren’t staying put at Wadleigh Pond Lean-to so that we’d have a better chance of staying under shelter if we needed to do so. Finally, we learned that the steep mountain that we had to climb had stone stairs positioned on it which would make the climb up and the descent much more manageable.

We made great time and were 6 miles in by 9 am. The other folk had camped both at the shelters but also along the sand beach adjacent to the trail. It was pretty along these areas but would have been nicer without the rain.

We stopped for lunch about 1 pm and 14 miles in – so we were making great time. The sandwiches helped us a good bit. There was a picnic table for us at the camp site where we ate and it was also on the water which was pretty. I didn’t mention to Kathleen until later that there was bear scat in the area. We never saw a bear and only four moose, all from the car! The first two, a mother and calf, were very cute with the calf trying to eat while the mother wanted to leave!

A sandy beach along Lake Nahmakanta. (Thanks, Steve)

An overlook. It was pretty despite the weather.

We arrived at the Wadleigh Pond Lean-to and were the only ones there. We just stopped and rested for a few minutes and had a bar and then decided to push on to finish off the hike. We also decided to just go back on the road rather than do the last two miles on the AT. Although it was only 3 pm and we had time, it had also been a bit of a push and we still had 6 miles on the AT or 4 miles on the AT and one on the road. I won’t choose to do it this way next time but I was quite content to get in a 23 mile day with a 20 pound pack. The climb up wasn’t as bad as we thought it was going to be and the descent wasn’t as bad as it might have been either due to the stone stairs. However, shortly after we finished the steepest part of the descent with only a mile on the AT and another on the road, the skies just opened up and we were caught in a downpour. We finished at 5:15 and were happy to call it a very good day on the trail and a very good five days overall. We just went back, picked up the other car, came back through the gatehouse and went back to the hotel. We checked in about 7 pm and I cleaned up first and then went to get us some dinner.

A very good hike week.

Thursday - Sunday, June 26 - 29

Thursday was a complete recovery day. We had a late breakfast and met a thru-hiker who only had to complete from Abol Bridge to Katahdin to finish it but needed to postpone it a day due to weather. He was there with his family and we had a good time chatting with them.

Afterwards, we slowly packed up and got on our way to John and Sharon Siedlecki’s camp on Lake Moxie. They have a beautiful place on the lake and we had a great time enjoying their hospitality, dinner on Thursday night and breakfast on Friday morning.

We left to get to Helen’s place in Manchester, CT. This time we walked into Manchester and had a great dinner at the Mulberry restaurant.

Saturday we went to Six Flags New England and the five of us (Gerard, Kathleen, Helen, Jake, and Sean) had a blast. The “Fast Pass” tickets worked out very well.

Sunday was just the drive home and recovery.

Only pics from these days were from John and Sharon’s camp. It was beautiful.

John, Sharon, and Kathleen at their camp and a view overlooking their dock.