Finally- Katahdin Trip Report
See my last trip report for more info/pictures.
We stayed in the same place this time as I had two years ago in this
report.
I've been lazy about writing this and I was
waiting to get some photos ready.
The trip was pretty much perfect.
We [Me, Heather, Rick, and Kelly] all got together the evening before we left to go over gear and then went out for a big dinner before eating camp food for a few days. We pulled down two towers of beer at the Great Lost Bear. Mmmmm....
We didn't get a super early start on Thursday but we weren't in any rush. We loaded up, picked up some groceries, gassed up and hit I-95 North to Millinocket and beyond. A few hours later, we were driving through the stunning towns of Medway and Millinocket. A closed paper mill, some crappy houses and run-down shops later, we were on the way to the park entrance.
The woman at the gate was a bit confused about the date and scared me good. The thought that we had driven up on the wrong day delivered a good shot of adrenaline after the long drive. The 7 mile drive on the dirt road in was fine- the road surface was much better manicured than I've even seen it.
The sun was out and it was warm as we began the 3.3 miles hike in to our campground. Here's a photo from the beginning of the hike. Kelly is in front, Heather and then Rick.
The trail is steady uphill but never really steep. It took us about 3 hours to reach camp, which was sometime around 6-7pm. Still plenty of sunlight left.
We were all pretty hungry and Rick scared me again by requiring some maintenance on his stove. He fixed it though with some tools- namely the wall of the lean-to. He may have also used his teeth. I'm not sure.
Dinner was some mac'n'cheese that wasn't the best. Oh well, the view of the mountain was more than enough to make up for it.
Home sweet home:
We went down to the pond to get a better view [the pond, located in the bowl of the mountain, affords some great views] and sign in with the ranger. Then it was back for some rather creative games of cards. Kelly had brought a deck of cards where each of the 52 cards had a different poster on it. [It was from a graphic design conference]. Anyway, wild cards in the poker game became 'Any card with Thursday or Friday on it' or 'Cards with two-color black and mustard printing'. Being large posters shrunk down to playing card size, the words were more than a bit difficult to read. That was a long hand as we all flipped on our lights to inspect each card closely. Kelly had the misfortune of getting a card with a solid paragraph on it.
Playing cards:
Very early in the morning, I woke up for some reason unknown to me. I had ear plugs in, so I hadn't heard any noise. Anyway, I picked my head up to see a large mamma moose and her smaller child standing right at our feet checking us out on their way past. I want to rouse others but didn't want to scare the moose, especially the mother, at all. They left moments later anyway.
I looked around to see if anyone else had seen that and Rick had his head up just as I had. He had heard them coming and actually saw them walking into view!
A few hours later, Rick and I compared moose stories and reported to Kelly and Heather who were both very disappointed. But they would get to see these moose later.
I recommended we take the Cathedral trail up the mountain, out of the 4 trails we had access to. It was supposed to be a fun climb and would give us the most options on the peak.
I've come down this trail before but never up. It was much easier up. But still, I was slow. My fear of heights kept me very cautious of every move and step. There are only a few spots that are in anyway 'technical' but I really don't like to fall.
It was Kelly, Rick, and myself climbing with Heather staying back at 'Base Camp'. We brought radios so we could talk. We stopped several times to call in to home base. It continually became more difficult to see Heather on the shore of the pond [see my previous trip photos from 2 years prior for shots of the pond from the mountain] and she eventually had to pace in a circle for us to be able to see her. She had some binoculars to aid her.
We made it to the peak in just under 4 hours. It was nicely bug free and not too chilly. We hung around, took photos, ate, talked about what we wanted to do now, etc.
On the peak, by the sign that marks the end of the Appalachian Trail.
One odd highlight was 3 A-10 military jets flying around the mountain. One did some cool aerial acrobatics. It took me a second to realize what was so odd about it all, but it was watching the planes from above! Being a mile above sea level on the peak makes for some great views!
Here's Kelly waving to Heather who was down the far short of the pond:
We decided not to go across the knife's edge. Its certainly a scary 'trail' and I don't think any of us had the right mental attitude to do it. So, we set off for the Saddle trail, which is supposed to be the easiest way down, certainly easier than the trail we had just climbed up!
The trail was a bunch of loose rock about the size of baseballs and while we all had moments of slippage, we moved pretty quickly. It took Heather a while to figure out where we were we had moved so far.
The saddle trail is shorter than others since it starts in the saddle of the ridge line, where its the lowest. It begins by climbing down a big rock slide, which was surprisingly not as bad as it looked. On the way down, Rick somehow spotted the bowl of a really old clay pipe and picked it up. We spent another couple of hours walking down to the campsite through some very nice forest. The sun came out in full for the first time after we were safely under the trees. The weather had cooperated perfectly throughout the day- warm but with a cooling breeze and just overcast enough to keep the blazing sun off of us.
So, now for the bad part. Due to some las minute shuffling of gear, we were short bug spray. We had run out by that morning. Quite thankfully, Heather managed to get some from a couple that was leaving that day. It certainly helped save the remainder of that day, as the return of the sun brought the black flies out. We all got to see the two moose again that day, which was very nice.
That night, the wind howled like crazy over the mountain. We were all very glad to be in the solid lean-to and not a tent. By morning, the wind had died down to a steady breeze and rain had started.
The day before, Heather had been bitten twice on the eyelid and now her eye was swollen up good. She was able to get it open enough to have some kind of stereo vision for the walk out. Here's a photo of her later, as we drove home:
The first thought was to wait the rain out but that wasn't going to work. We just sucked it up and hit the trail. It got better and at one point the sun came out. But then it got worse. I didn't feel like put my rain jacket back on, so I hiked the last 1.5 hours in the rain. I was cool but not cold. And I knew I had a full change of clothes waiting for me in the car!
We finally got to the car, changed, and drank some beers we had stashed there for that moment. We stopped at the good ol' Millinocket house of pizza for food and then hit 95 back to Portland. I managed to get in a good nap on the ride home. :)
Later that evening, we all watched a DVD I have about the mountain. It was agreed that the real thing is better...
[I'm sure I've left a million things out- I'll edit this I remember/am reminded of them]
The trip was pretty much perfect.
We [Me, Heather, Rick, and Kelly] all got together the evening before we left to go over gear and then went out for a big dinner before eating camp food for a few days. We pulled down two towers of beer at the Great Lost Bear. Mmmmm....
We didn't get a super early start on Thursday but we weren't in any rush. We loaded up, picked up some groceries, gassed up and hit I-95 North to Millinocket and beyond. A few hours later, we were driving through the stunning towns of Medway and Millinocket. A closed paper mill, some crappy houses and run-down shops later, we were on the way to the park entrance.
The woman at the gate was a bit confused about the date and scared me good. The thought that we had driven up on the wrong day delivered a good shot of adrenaline after the long drive. The 7 mile drive on the dirt road in was fine- the road surface was much better manicured than I've even seen it.
The sun was out and it was warm as we began the 3.3 miles hike in to our campground. Here's a photo from the beginning of the hike. Kelly is in front, Heather and then Rick.
The trail is steady uphill but never really steep. It took us about 3 hours to reach camp, which was sometime around 6-7pm. Still plenty of sunlight left.
We were all pretty hungry and Rick scared me again by requiring some maintenance on his stove. He fixed it though with some tools- namely the wall of the lean-to. He may have also used his teeth. I'm not sure.
Dinner was some mac'n'cheese that wasn't the best. Oh well, the view of the mountain was more than enough to make up for it.
Home sweet home:
We went down to the pond to get a better view [the pond, located in the bowl of the mountain, affords some great views] and sign in with the ranger. Then it was back for some rather creative games of cards. Kelly had brought a deck of cards where each of the 52 cards had a different poster on it. [It was from a graphic design conference]. Anyway, wild cards in the poker game became 'Any card with Thursday or Friday on it' or 'Cards with two-color black and mustard printing'. Being large posters shrunk down to playing card size, the words were more than a bit difficult to read. That was a long hand as we all flipped on our lights to inspect each card closely. Kelly had the misfortune of getting a card with a solid paragraph on it.
Playing cards:
Very early in the morning, I woke up for some reason unknown to me. I had ear plugs in, so I hadn't heard any noise. Anyway, I picked my head up to see a large mamma moose and her smaller child standing right at our feet checking us out on their way past. I want to rouse others but didn't want to scare the moose, especially the mother, at all. They left moments later anyway.
I looked around to see if anyone else had seen that and Rick had his head up just as I had. He had heard them coming and actually saw them walking into view!
A few hours later, Rick and I compared moose stories and reported to Kelly and Heather who were both very disappointed. But they would get to see these moose later.
I recommended we take the Cathedral trail up the mountain, out of the 4 trails we had access to. It was supposed to be a fun climb and would give us the most options on the peak.
I've come down this trail before but never up. It was much easier up. But still, I was slow. My fear of heights kept me very cautious of every move and step. There are only a few spots that are in anyway 'technical' but I really don't like to fall.
It was Kelly, Rick, and myself climbing with Heather staying back at 'Base Camp'. We brought radios so we could talk. We stopped several times to call in to home base. It continually became more difficult to see Heather on the shore of the pond [see my previous trip photos from 2 years prior for shots of the pond from the mountain] and she eventually had to pace in a circle for us to be able to see her. She had some binoculars to aid her.
We made it to the peak in just under 4 hours. It was nicely bug free and not too chilly. We hung around, took photos, ate, talked about what we wanted to do now, etc.
On the peak, by the sign that marks the end of the Appalachian Trail.
One odd highlight was 3 A-10 military jets flying around the mountain. One did some cool aerial acrobatics. It took me a second to realize what was so odd about it all, but it was watching the planes from above! Being a mile above sea level on the peak makes for some great views!
Here's Kelly waving to Heather who was down the far short of the pond:
We decided not to go across the knife's edge. Its certainly a scary 'trail' and I don't think any of us had the right mental attitude to do it. So, we set off for the Saddle trail, which is supposed to be the easiest way down, certainly easier than the trail we had just climbed up!
The trail was a bunch of loose rock about the size of baseballs and while we all had moments of slippage, we moved pretty quickly. It took Heather a while to figure out where we were we had moved so far.
The saddle trail is shorter than others since it starts in the saddle of the ridge line, where its the lowest. It begins by climbing down a big rock slide, which was surprisingly not as bad as it looked. On the way down, Rick somehow spotted the bowl of a really old clay pipe and picked it up. We spent another couple of hours walking down to the campsite through some very nice forest. The sun came out in full for the first time after we were safely under the trees. The weather had cooperated perfectly throughout the day- warm but with a cooling breeze and just overcast enough to keep the blazing sun off of us.
So, now for the bad part. Due to some las minute shuffling of gear, we were short bug spray. We had run out by that morning. Quite thankfully, Heather managed to get some from a couple that was leaving that day. It certainly helped save the remainder of that day, as the return of the sun brought the black flies out. We all got to see the two moose again that day, which was very nice.
That night, the wind howled like crazy over the mountain. We were all very glad to be in the solid lean-to and not a tent. By morning, the wind had died down to a steady breeze and rain had started.
The day before, Heather had been bitten twice on the eyelid and now her eye was swollen up good. She was able to get it open enough to have some kind of stereo vision for the walk out. Here's a photo of her later, as we drove home:
The first thought was to wait the rain out but that wasn't going to work. We just sucked it up and hit the trail. It got better and at one point the sun came out. But then it got worse. I didn't feel like put my rain jacket back on, so I hiked the last 1.5 hours in the rain. I was cool but not cold. And I knew I had a full change of clothes waiting for me in the car!
We finally got to the car, changed, and drank some beers we had stashed there for that moment. We stopped at the good ol' Millinocket house of pizza for food and then hit 95 back to Portland. I managed to get in a good nap on the ride home. :)
Later that evening, we all watched a DVD I have about the mountain. It was agreed that the real thing is better...
[I'm sure I've left a million things out- I'll edit this I remember/am reminded of them]
Posted: Fri - June 25, 2004 at 02:05 PM |
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Published On: Nov 21, 2005 01:53 PM
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Published On: Nov 21, 2005 01:53 PM