Background
I’ve spoken at length on several of our podcast episodes about my bucket list challenge of hiking all the highpoints of New England. To recap, the highpoints are:
- Jerimoth Hill in RI
- Mt. Frissell which is technically in MA but a mole hanging off its butt is the highest point in CT
- Mt. Greylock in MA
- Mt. Mansfield in VT
- Mt. Washington in NH
- Mt. Katahdin in ME
This past July, I finally completed the list by crossing off Katahdin with our friend Tim, who was on a recent episode talking about the experience. Zack had the suggestion of making a blog post highlighting the hike with some of the pictures we took during the trip. I’ll try not to repeat myself too much here, but I’ll give a little context about why this particular hike was over 2 years in the making.
Challenges
Every hike on the list above could be turned into a day hike, with the exception of Katahdin. For the vast majority of New Englanders, this hike is impossible to do in one day unless you live in Millinocket, or are in some pro-athlete level of fitness. For me, it’s a 7 hour drive one-way. The easiest trail for the hike itself is about 11 miles and nearly 4,000′ of elevation gain. For many people, this is a 12 hour hike. Now I’m no math scientist, but I don’t think a 14 hour drive and a 12 hour hike can be done in 24 hours. In fact, I don’t think it’s feasible to do in two days, because one of those days would still be 12 hours of hiking and 7 hours of driving. So I had to look at dedicating 3 days for this.
Easy enough, I’ll just go up some long weekend, right? Dead wrong. Mt. Katahdin is located in Baxter State Park, which employs a wilderness management philosophy. The rangers’ job is to protect the park from humans, not the other way around. One of the ways they do that is by limiting how many people are allowed in the park at any given day. This magic number is 315 people/day. Keep in mind, Baxter Peak (the name of the summit of Mt. Katahdin) is the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. It’s an awfully popular destination with a very limited number of permits allowing people in. All the other summits on this list allow hikers to come and go as they please. One could head up, get in line at the gate house before 6am and hope to get a pass, but that’s a big risk to not be guaranteed entry. Fortunately, there are several campgrounds in the park, and reserving a site also comes with a permit.
Unfortunately, those spots fill up fast. So we’re talking about a 3 day trip to northern Maine. Hiking season technically runs from May and ends in October, but in reality, the most reasonable time period to attempt this is July-September. You have to book in advance. This presents the next challenge; they only allowing booking up to 120 days ahead of time. I wanted to attempt this in July, which meant I had to make my reservation in March at the earliest. It’s at this point I had to decide how I wanted to hike Katahdin. I could stay at the Roaring Brook Campground, at the base of the park. This would mean I could have everything I need in the car/campsite, and the day of the hike, carry a light pack. The downside is that would make for a really long day. Even if I was physically capable of doing that long of a hike, I think I would have been absolutely miserable. So the second option was staying at the Chimney Pond Campground. This is a backcountry campground that you hike into. The benefits of this is you hike halfway up the first day, leaving the second day to tag the summit as a much easier hike. Plus, it has the reputation of being one of the most beautiful campgrounds in the entire United States. The downside is, of course, means packing absolutely everything we might need in our bags and carrying them up. And I mean everything. Food for 3 days. Water/water treatment. Clothes. Tent. There’s not a camp store to go to if you forget something. But I was up for the challenge, and this was what I decided to do.
Easier said than done. Some campsites can be booked online, but not Chimney Pond. You have to call to reserve the site. So on a Thursday morning mid March, I had all the numbers put in my phone and the second the clock struck 8:00am, I pressed “call”. I was the 7th person in the queue. After being on hold for over 15 minutes, I was disconnected. When I called back, I was 13th. When I finally spoke with a staff person, every single site had been booked, except for one, which is the one I ultimately booked. This brings us to the final challenge. The weather. Historically, there’s a 30%-40% chance of rain on any given day during July-September. I tried doing this trip in 2023, calling in March to make a reservation and all. When the time in July came for me to make the trip, the forecast called for a complete wash out. They actually had historic flooding, with some of the trails being up to hikers waists in water. So even if you do everything to prepare, the weather could still not go your way. But this year I got lucky!
I don’t have too many pictures on our first day during our initial ascent. I think probably because we had just driven for about 7 hours and had to hike 3.5 miles before it got dark. We were probably in “get going” mode. But I do have some.
The way up on the first day was pretty miserable. The stats were deceiving, as it looked like it should have a relatively not-steep elevation change. About 1300′ over 3.3 miles. I think what made it tough was we were carrying ~40lb backpacks and the constant rocks. And I’m used to rocks from hiking in the White Mountains. But here, event the flat sections had nothing but rocks. It was slow going. At one point, Tim mused that we must be almost there. I looked at the map and thought I didn’t think we were even halfway there, but secretly hoped he was right. When we got to the actual halfway point, that was a little demoralizing. So getting to the campground was a sight for sore eyes!
One thing to point out is that there really wasn’t much open area. There was this pavilion that people could eat at. There’s also a bunkhouse nearby that you can book a bed in (they were all full when I called). The rest are 9 lean-to’s surrounding the area. They’re not close to each other, and you have to walk through the woods to go from one to the other. Not a traditional campground by any means.
We brought my 2 person backpacking tent and set it up in the lean-to, which was a good idea. Even in July, it was a bit windy and certainly cooler at night. The tent helped keep the heat in and cut down on the breeze. Plus a little privacy. I think I still would have brought it, even though it added 8 pounds to the pack weight.
Now’s a good time to talk about the need for bear bags. All food- ALL FOOD- has to be packed into a bear bag and hung on a bear line. The campground provides the line and hooks to hang the bags up. The lines are probably 10′ off the ground. The rangers make sure to really hammer home the point that you can’t leave any food out. We were told earlier that week, someone left a mini candy inside their backpack. Overnight they woke up to a bear inside their lean-to digging through the bag trying to get to it. Tim and I made sure to be extra diligent to make sure when we were done eating for the day that we cleaned out everything and put even the wrappers in the bag.
Earlier I mentioned we had to bring our own food. This was 5 meals for the two of us. Dinner, breakfast, summit lunch, dinner, and breakfast for the morning we left. And lots of snacks. I recall breakfast was oatmeal with honey and coffee, lunch was peanut butter and honey sandwiches, cheese and crackers with pepperoni, dinner was instant mashed potatoes with beef jerky. Lots of candy too. There’s pretty much no amount of calories that are too many on a hike like this. We also had to treat our own water- there’s no potable water anywhere in the park. Fortunately the namesake of Chimney Pond is very accessible (and beautiful, as you’ll see). We had a few different ways of treating the water. There’s also no campfires allowed at this campground, so all cooking has to be over a butane stove, which we also had. A big thanks to my niece Nakitta, by the way, for outfitting Tim with a lot of gear and loaning us some of her backpacking equipment!
These warnings were posted in all the lean-to’s. We saw this first hand when a hiker came down after summiting Katahdin. They were in a lot of pain and believed they tore their ACL. They ranger suggested they take Advil and get moving down the rest of the trail, it’s going to get dark soon! Another reminder that the park staff is there to protect the park, not you.
Well now this was the money shot. Our lean-to was a short walk away from the small rocky shore of Chimney Pond. This is where we refilled our water, and spent most of our time relaxing. For the majority of the time we were here, there was no one else near us. At some points, we were the only ones even there. I guess my belly aching about the restrictiveness of the park is a little unfair. When I think back on the trip, this is what I remember, far more than the summit itself. I would come back again just for this view alone.
After dinner, we went to bed pretty early. Once it gets dark, what else is there to do? We slept on 3″ inflatable mattresses. Light weight and gets us off the ground to stay warm. Comfortable? No, not really. But absolutely better than sleeping flat against the wood floor. We’re grateful to Andy and Kitta for loaning them to us! I recall having to climb over Tim around 2am for a wee. It wasn’t too windy where we were, but the sound of the wind whipping off the mountain was quite loud all night. It actually gave me a little anxiety, because it was already a little chilly and I couldn’t imagine us getting warmer in the morning as we climbed higher towards the summit.
We woke up early the next morning. Maybe 5 or 6, I don’t quite remember. Just after sunrise. We decided we’d take an hour before heading up to get ourselves prepared. Make breakfast, get dressed, get our packs ready, get water, etc. There’s a fair amount of camp chores to do, too. Dealing with the bear bag, cleaning up so nothing is left while we’re gone, cleaning the dishes and so forth.
I guess now is as good a time as any to talk about the two necessities, getting water and the outhouse. As I said earlier, there is no potable water in the park. It is a requirement to have a way to treat water. I have a couple of treatment solutions, but the one we used the most was a filter that screws onto a camelpak (a rubber bladder that holds water). You fill the bladder up with water, then put on the filter, then squirt the water back out into bottles or whatever else meant to hold the water. It worked great. Fast way to treat a lot of water. Tim had a Lifestraw, which is exactly what it sounds like. A straw you put right in the water source and drink from. I’ll post a video down below of Tim trying it out.
Most backcountry hiking also usually means there is no bathroom. You bring a trowel, some toilet paper and dig a thing called a cat hole. Above the treeline, different story. I’ll spare you the lovely details and just say that the rules for alpine nature calls requires the use of a ziplock bag. Chimney Pond did have outhouses which were shockingly nice. They used composting toilets and had a bin of cedar shavings to scoop in after a, uh, deposit, is made. They were clean and had no smell, just not at all what I would have expected. So if this is a trip you’d consider making but aren’t normally an “away game pitcher”, let me reassure you that these were cleaner than most public restrooms. As a fun aside, they also have notices to alert the outhouse visitor that anything that’s not supposed to go in a toilet has to be manually fished out by the rangers.
Tim showing how we used the bear line
The Hike!
Before heading out, everyone attempting the summit needs to sign in at the ranger station with their name, time, and trail. This helps rangers keep track of everyone and make sure no one is lost. I’d split this part of the day into 3 sections; initial ascent, the famous “Saddle Slide”, and the alpine final push. The initial ascent was great. Rocky, of course and a bit narrow. It worked it’s way up in steepness, so at least we weren’t jumping straight into a major climb.
The slide took a while to get up. A split between being a technical climb and taking care that our footing was sure. A lot of it was a scramble, which in hiking means using your hands to pull yourself up large rocks. Even though it doesn’t go very far and you can see the top, it’s just slow going.
I regret not having pictures, but we actually did get lost for a couple of minutes around this point. There’s a split in the trail, one that takes the longer but less steep path up, and the other called the Cathedral Cutoff Trail, which takes a more direct route up. These weren’t marked, and in fact there aren’t much markings going up. Sometimes a faintly painted rock. Technically if you just go up, you’ll get there. But in the alpine zone, you’re really suppose to stay on the designated trail to limit damage to the fragile vegetation. Anyway, we had started up the Cathedral Cutoff, but quickly realized our mistake and moved back over to the regular trail.
Made it to the summit! Quick behind the scenes note that WordPress is just really awful with formatting pictures. Maybe it’s just me, they import then change. Apologies!
The pond below is Chimney Pond. Those two tiny clearings are the Ranger’s cabin and further back, the bunkhouse and pavilion area.
As I mentioned, once we got to the tablelands the wind really picked up, probably a steady 15-20 mph. It was low 50s and likely a wind chill in the 30s. We put on our jackets, and I actually wish I brought gloves. Dressing for the temperature at the base and not the summit is probably one of the more common mistakes people make. We saw a lot of people who were in shorts and a tank top who must have been freezing. We stayed at the summit for maybe 20 minutes. The wind died down dramatically, thankfully. We also had the summit mostly to ourselves for a few minutes before a crowd of college students popped up from another trail along the eastern side. We ate lunch, took some pictures, and headed back down.
The hike down was mostly uneventful, except for a woman coming up the slide. She was with a mountaineering club out of Boston, a very well prepared group dressed well and lots of safety equipment. Even had walkie talkies. The guy who helped the fallen hiker was part of them. Anyway, she was terrified to continue going, and was VERY far behind the rest of the group. We tried to give her some advise, but hopefully she radioed to her group and waited for them to return rather than hike something she didn’t feel safe on.
Tim trying out his Life Filter
We got back to the site pretty early in the day, maybe around 1pm or so. We changed, refilled our water, ate some snacks, and lounged the rest of the day at the pond enjoying the view. For dinner, we cooked up some instant mashed potatoes and threw in beef jerky. It was just delicious. Cleaned up camp and turned in early again. Enjoy the video of the pond below!
The next morning we made breakfast, packed up camp, and made our way back down to the car. We both remarked that the hike down felt a lot less miserable than the hike up, which isn’t normally the case.
We made it down safely and in good time. I think it took us around 2 hours. We checked out at the base ranger station, loaded up the car and started the 7 hour drive back home. All in all, a fantastic trip that was well worth the two-year wait!
