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eorWell, I'm finally getting around to posting a triplog/hike description. If you want more pictures to go along with the descriptions, refer to my post from two years ago, there are some links there to pictures of the lower part of the climb.
Wednesday, travel day:
We left home at around 10am and slowly made our way northward. We ended up getting to our campsite at around 3pm. It didn't take us long to get the van all set up for wet weather and retreat inside to avoid the swarms of blackflies and mosquitos.
We did venture out to talk to the ranger and check the weather for the next day. On the way back we admired the grandaddy of all apple trees, which stands at the edge of the day use area.
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derien made supper and I got the clothes and the packs ready for the next day's hike. We were in bed as soon as it even began to get dark, for it would be an early wake up call.
Thursday, hike day:
The birds were awake before we were the next morning, but not by much. We were on the trail by 5am and moving to stay ahead of the mosquitoes. We reached our first milestone, the Katahdin Stream crossing, in about 45 minutes feeling fine. Contrast that with two years ago when it took us an hour and we were already feeling bushed. The next section of the trail didn't go as easy, but we still made better time through it than we ever have before.
A view from below treeline. This is probably somewhere around a third of the way to the top. The ponds down there are at the elevation we started at.
We got to the foot of the Iron Ladder at 7:40am intending on sitting down for a leisurely breakfast snack. We had the quickest leisurely breakfast you could possibly imagine: ate, drank, rearranged clothing, got out rock gloves, and got moving. The blackflies were still quite active at that elevation and there was no breeze to disturb them in the shelter of the rocks. We very quickly became their breakfast, 15 minutes later we were moving through the Iron Ladder, huffing and puffing with the exertion.
We continued with only a few brief stops for water all the way up the arrete to the Tableland. This is the most difficult part of the climb and I felt really good about the fact it didn't completely beat us down. 1,500 feet of vertical climb across about a mile of trail, it's quite a trip. See the pics from my post two years ago for an idea of what it's like.
We reached the Tablelands at around 9:40am I think. The walk from there to the summit is probably the easiest mile and a half of the trail, but when you've already walked 3 1/2 miles and climbed 3,600 feet in elevation, it's a little bit harder to take a quick stroll. We made good time across the relatively flat part then slowed considerably up the summit cone to the final few cairns. We'd never actually seen the summit before because the overcast was so heavy both of the previous years. It's an amazingly long way across that mountaintop.
The trail across the Tableland. This is looking down from the peak. The cairn at the far right is the top end of the trail in this picture. From there the trail snakes down to the left by the snow, then turns 90 degrees and heads to the far end of the flat area. Don't be fooled by that trail that goes off about half way across the flat, that's Abol Trail and not the one we were hiking.
At a little before 11am we made it to the top and enjoyed a sitdown and some more food. Then we took some pictures.
derien at the top of Maine's highest peak and the termination of the Appalacian Trail.
Just to prove I made it too.
This was the first time I'd ever seen the impresive bowl that is formed by the various peaks of Katahdin. A picture does not do it justice.
After a rest, because the weather was beautiful and we might not get the chance again, I set out on a quick walk across the first part of the Knife Edge trail to the South Peak.
If you look really close you can see me sitting on the intermediate, unnamed peak, before I continued on to South Peak. Look at all that granite. At the top of Baxter Peak there is a lot of pink granite with green moss on it. It's in incredibly pretty in a tough, rugged way.
I met back up withderien about halfway between South Peak and Baxter Peak on my way back. We got back to Baxter Peak and started our downclimb at noon. The weather was beautiful, just a hint of breeze and warm, but not too hot, temps. It made the downclimb a pleasant, but tiring walk. We got back into the campground at a few minutes after 4pm. 11 hours on the trail to cover 4,189 feet of vertical gain and 10.4 miles of the Hunt trail plus the chunk of the Knifes Edge.
We didn't see much wildlife. We heard all kinds of birds, but only saw one small bird on the tableland and one very large crow or raven circling the peak. We also saw four toads along the trail and stopped to thank each of them for all the bugs they are eating. Also, on the summit cone there were spiders, all the same size (just under an inch) and black color, running around between the rocks. Anywhere you sat down, like little Miss Muffett, there was a spider somewhere beside you.derien figured they must life on hikers because there weren't that many bugs around.
It was a perfect day for hiking and we must have been in better shape than we thought we were because we covered a fairly tough trail with relative ease. It wasn't easy easy, but it's not like we were dying. We did, however, go to bed right after supper, at 7pm.
Friday: Woke to rain after about 13 hours of sleep. Hung about the van eating, reading, and hydrating all day. Didn't do much else. Wandered out in the evening to check the weather forecast for the next day: chance of rain.
Saturday: Woke to rain, went back to sleep for an hour and rewoke to a lack of rain. Started to prepare for a lowlands hike. Before we could even get out the door the rain started up again in earnest. Rain continued non-stop through breakfast. The water tank ran dry so we took that as an omen that we should leave. Packed up the tarps in the pouring rain and headed south. We didn't see a ray of sunshine until we were south of Bangor, then it was touch and go with more rain the rest of the day.
Our reputation as rain gods is preserved.
Wednesday, travel day:
We left home at around 10am and slowly made our way northward. We ended up getting to our campsite at around 3pm. It didn't take us long to get the van all set up for wet weather and retreat inside to avoid the swarms of blackflies and mosquitos.
We did venture out to talk to the ranger and check the weather for the next day. On the way back we admired the grandaddy of all apple trees, which stands at the edge of the day use area.
derien made supper and I got the clothes and the packs ready for the next day's hike. We were in bed as soon as it even began to get dark, for it would be an early wake up call.Thursday, hike day:
The birds were awake before we were the next morning, but not by much. We were on the trail by 5am and moving to stay ahead of the mosquitoes. We reached our first milestone, the Katahdin Stream crossing, in about 45 minutes feeling fine. Contrast that with two years ago when it took us an hour and we were already feeling bushed. The next section of the trail didn't go as easy, but we still made better time through it than we ever have before.
A view from below treeline. This is probably somewhere around a third of the way to the top. The ponds down there are at the elevation we started at.
We got to the foot of the Iron Ladder at 7:40am intending on sitting down for a leisurely breakfast snack. We had the quickest leisurely breakfast you could possibly imagine: ate, drank, rearranged clothing, got out rock gloves, and got moving. The blackflies were still quite active at that elevation and there was no breeze to disturb them in the shelter of the rocks. We very quickly became their breakfast, 15 minutes later we were moving through the Iron Ladder, huffing and puffing with the exertion.
We continued with only a few brief stops for water all the way up the arrete to the Tableland. This is the most difficult part of the climb and I felt really good about the fact it didn't completely beat us down. 1,500 feet of vertical climb across about a mile of trail, it's quite a trip. See the pics from my post two years ago for an idea of what it's like.
We reached the Tablelands at around 9:40am I think. The walk from there to the summit is probably the easiest mile and a half of the trail, but when you've already walked 3 1/2 miles and climbed 3,600 feet in elevation, it's a little bit harder to take a quick stroll. We made good time across the relatively flat part then slowed considerably up the summit cone to the final few cairns. We'd never actually seen the summit before because the overcast was so heavy both of the previous years. It's an amazingly long way across that mountaintop.
The trail across the Tableland. This is looking down from the peak. The cairn at the far right is the top end of the trail in this picture. From there the trail snakes down to the left by the snow, then turns 90 degrees and heads to the far end of the flat area. Don't be fooled by that trail that goes off about half way across the flat, that's Abol Trail and not the one we were hiking.
At a little before 11am we made it to the top and enjoyed a sitdown and some more food. Then we took some pictures.
derien at the top of Maine's highest peak and the termination of the Appalacian Trail.Just to prove I made it too.
This was the first time I'd ever seen the impresive bowl that is formed by the various peaks of Katahdin. A picture does not do it justice.
After a rest, because the weather was beautiful and we might not get the chance again, I set out on a quick walk across the first part of the Knife Edge trail to the South Peak.
If you look really close you can see me sitting on the intermediate, unnamed peak, before I continued on to South Peak. Look at all that granite. At the top of Baxter Peak there is a lot of pink granite with green moss on it. It's in incredibly pretty in a tough, rugged way.
I met back up with
derien about halfway between South Peak and Baxter Peak on my way back. We got back to Baxter Peak and started our downclimb at noon. The weather was beautiful, just a hint of breeze and warm, but not too hot, temps. It made the downclimb a pleasant, but tiring walk. We got back into the campground at a few minutes after 4pm. 11 hours on the trail to cover 4,189 feet of vertical gain and 10.4 miles of the Hunt trail plus the chunk of the Knifes Edge.We didn't see much wildlife. We heard all kinds of birds, but only saw one small bird on the tableland and one very large crow or raven circling the peak. We also saw four toads along the trail and stopped to thank each of them for all the bugs they are eating. Also, on the summit cone there were spiders, all the same size (just under an inch) and black color, running around between the rocks. Anywhere you sat down, like little Miss Muffett, there was a spider somewhere beside you.
derien figured they must life on hikers because there weren't that many bugs around.It was a perfect day for hiking and we must have been in better shape than we thought we were because we covered a fairly tough trail with relative ease. It wasn't easy easy, but it's not like we were dying. We did, however, go to bed right after supper, at 7pm.
Friday: Woke to rain after about 13 hours of sleep. Hung about the van eating, reading, and hydrating all day. Didn't do much else. Wandered out in the evening to check the weather forecast for the next day: chance of rain.
Saturday: Woke to rain, went back to sleep for an hour and rewoke to a lack of rain. Started to prepare for a lowlands hike. Before we could even get out the door the rain started up again in earnest. Rain continued non-stop through breakfast. The water tank ran dry so we took that as an omen that we should leave. Packed up the tarps in the pouring rain and headed south. We didn't see a ray of sunshine until we were south of Bangor, then it was touch and go with more rain the rest of the day.
Our reputation as rain gods is preserved.
