It was Monday, December 12th and was time to bid Acadia National Park adieu after staying there the last three nights. I seriously thought of scrapping my plans and head north along the coast, perhaps to Canada to see what other mischief I could get into. The rugged coast struck a chord with me and I wanted to explore her more deeply. The locals had been great and I expected more of the same if I hugged the Atlantic. Maybe I could find a captain who’d let me catch lobster with him for a day. That would be a lot of fun. Ahhhh. What to do? After thinking it through and looking at camping options along the coast, I broke down my tent, packed my car and started my drive inland. The ample land around Millinocket and Baxter State Park was a cheaper and easier bet than figuring something out elsewhere.
Before making it to Millinocket, I had to swing through Bangor and pay homage to Stephen King, where he lives in a fairly modest home. Talking to a guy in Bar Harbor, I learned that the previous owner of the house had committed suicide by jumping off a bridge, strangely fitting of the horror writers’ macabre books. A new book in my favorite book series, his Dark Tower collection, is being released this spring!
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| Stephen King's House. Note the bats and spiderweb theme with his wrought iron fence. |
After the quick snapshot, I hopped on I-95 and headed to Millinocket, with something less than a plan. Huge swaths of forest whirled by the further north I went. Arriving in Millinocket, I stopped by the Baxter State Park office. Perhaps, the folks in the office could give me an idea of where to go. I struck up a conversation with the office lady and name-dropped Lester Kenway. Lester is one of the most well respected authorities on working with and transporting rock in the trail building community. He pioneered the techniques used around the county while working at Baxter State Park. I had attended a training of his in late September at Devil’s Lake so I felt name-dropping was appropriate. She responded favorably by handing me an application for their trail crew.
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| Lester drilling into a rock |
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| Rock split in half with nice flat sides |
The lady gave me a rundown of things to do in the area that were open in the winter. I couldn’t camp at Baxter because to camp in the winter, you have to submit an application with a list of all your camping gear at least a week in advance. Baxter is a 200,000-acre wilderness park and home to Mt. Katahdin the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. Needless to say, it’s a big chunk of land with no road access in the winter so you are on your own if tackling it in winter. She told me the park road was not plowed but there hadn’t been much snow so far so I could drive all the way to the gate and check things out from there. I bought a map and headed to an outfitter in town to get a bottle of iodine tablets just in case I got lost without a good source of clean water.
I talked with the guy at the store for a while. He was the first person who had heard of the Ice Age Trail! He explained why the rules for winter use at Baxter were so onerous. In the 60’s, the park manager lost a friend when he went into the park to rescue some folks who were not prepared. I laid out my tentative plans for the rest of the trip and he suggested a place to go in the White Mountains. His suggestion was a fantastic addition to the trip, but that’s for another post. The folks I met on top of Cadillac Mt. the day before told me about camping along the Golden Road, which is a logging road that is kept open year round. The guy at the store backed the information up and I headed out.
Katahdin loomed on the horizon, beckoning me closer. It felt like driving to Flagstaff, AZ from the east where the mountain dominates the landscape for miles and miles. I wasn’t sure where the Golden Road (to Unlimited Devotion) was but figured I could wing it and find it. The road ceased to be plowed 15 miles from the park, but it wasn’t too bad so I kept going. I made it to a gate and stopped to walk around and take some pictures. It was a crystal clear day and the snow-covered Katahdin was beginning to blush in the late afternoon sun. I had better find this Golden Road before too long.
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| Baxter State Park |
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| Katahdin in the distance along the icy park road. I really failed at taking pictures this day. Many times I saw what could be a great picture only to drive by without snapping a shot. Fail. |
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| Here's the view driving into Flagstaff and what it looked like driving to Katahdin, well Maine had trees, but you get the idea. |
I headed back the way I came and got a little too confident on the icy road. My car started fishtailing wildly. Shit. There was no cell coverage and it was 15 miles to the nearest house. The prospects of someone coming along to pull me out of the ditch were somewhere in the range of the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series this year. The rear end touched both sides of the road. I was only seconds from disaster, when my Wisconsin skills kicked in and I miraculously regained control of the flailing Intrepid. I think I should slow down a bit.
The map I had wasn’t the best and I turned down a “road” which turned out be an old logging road or tote road because the ruts started causing my car to bottom out. I turned around and had to gun it down the hill just so I had enough speed to make it up the next ice-covered hill. My car and I survived and I finally discovered the Golden Road. I’m not sure how I missed it the first time. It was a nice, wide paved road that was plowed. I passed a few logging trucks on my way to the Abol Campground which the guy in Millinocket had pointed me towards. Turns out it’s not open in the winter, but the logging company has campsites all along the road, opening up their land for public use.
The Golden Road is maintained by the logging company and is similar to other roads around Maine, a lot of them charge you to use them. I’m not sure if there was a fee for this road because I snuck on and off via an access road. The guy I talked to at the campground, pointed out the Appalachian Trail had camping and was just a hundred yards down the road. I drove up and parked on the side of the road and headed into the woods. Dusk had arrived and not even the summit of Katahdin found the last rays of the day.
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| Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion) |
I threw together my backpack and set off into the Maine Woods. This was the last 3 miles of Maine’s fabled 100-mile Wilderness. Nowhere to resupply or get help for 100 miles. Awesome. I was excited to stay at an official Appalachian Trail shelter and the Hurd Brook Lean-to, 3.3 miles down trail, provided me that opportunity. The trail was rough with roots and rocks, but easy to follow in the darkness. My days seem to becoming more and more crepuscular in nature. An inch or two of snow covered the ground, illuminating the trail, but eventually the cedars and hemlocks blocked out the snow and light, forcing me to turn on the headlamp. I started out excited, but soon my brain started working against me. “What am I doing out here? Hiking a crappy trail at night in the middle of nowhere and for what?” My feet never turned against me and soon enough I was at the lean-to.
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| Entering the 100-mile Wilderness |
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| Hurd Brook Shelter |
I made dinner and started to peruse the trail register that sits on a shelf inside, protected from the weather. After reading a bit, I realized that the Hurd Brook campsite is the last night on the AT for a lot of the thru-hikers. The register was filled with hikers named Swift, Witch Doctor, Happy Pappy, Bumblebee and the Bearded Jew. From their entries, a lot of the hikers were trying to outrun a hurricane while others were reminiscing about the previous 2000 miles. One guy said this was his 17th thru-hike! I hope to be back someday, I just need a trail name (I was always partial to Chimp, in reference to Rick Moranis’s character in Strange Brew [Here's the clip!])!
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| One of many trail names scratched into the shelter's walls |
Reading through, you get a sense of the community that is created over 2000 miles. You keep seeing and talking to the same people as you trek north and leave notes for one another at registers along the trail. It seems the hard part of the AT is physical, not mental, because someone is always there to pick you up if you’re feeling down or having trouble. Maybe I’m wrong. A few people who’ve hiked the AT had trouble with the Ice Age Trail when they got to the Northwoods because it is filled with solitude. I’m a lonely guy in general so the IAT wasn’t too bad (wait, I talk to everyone…)
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| Hurd Brook |
I kept seeing lights through the trees, which made me think town was close, but I realized it was just the stars, acting as my streetlights. I dozed off with clear skies overhead and a gurgling stream providing the soundtrack. Tomorrow my voyage was headed to Rangeley, Maine. I didn’t know what I was going to find there, but I sure didn’t expect the craziness that ensued.
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