Date: 2009-08-08
From: Katahdin Stream Campground/Baxter State Park

To: Baxter Peak/Mt. Katahdin!!!
Miles today: 5.2
Weather: overcast clouds

Today was the big day! They get very few Class I days here at Mt. Katahdin, and according to weather.com, it was going to be perfect weather (the park does not post the classifications until 7am) so we took a chance and were at the entrance gate at 6:30am. Access:South--After arriving at Baxter State Park we drove for 1/2 hour to the Katahdin Stream Campground. Much to our dismay, all of the day hiker parking spaces were taken, so we created our own spot next to some reserved spots.North--Foot power! This was the peak of the mountain and the end of the AT!The Hike:We were about as nervous as we have ever been before a hike. Prior to this year, we had never bothered to look at the hike up Katahdin, but this season we have been staring at the topo map and how extreme the vertical climb would be!We signed in at the base of the trail (the only column missing was 'Next of Kin'!), and started our hike at 7:15am. The first mile was a nice, level trail along the Katahdin Stream to a beautiful bridge over the stream beside a waterfall. We were thankful for every step of this easy mile knowing what was ahead!After the bridge the trail started to climb. This second mile was up 1000' and over some large rocks. At times a stream ran through the trail making the going slippery. At times we pulled ourselves up using the trees beside the trail. We then hit treeline and that was the beginning of the Katahdin Challenge...the party was over! There were huge boulders to climb over, under and around. At times, you truly didn't know where the trail was supposed to go! Several of the boulders had iron (rebar) foot and hand holds which were very scary. It was a weekend with good weather, so the trail was fairly crowded and sometimes you ended up in a clump of hikers, all waiting for a turn to get up the rock face.From treeline to the Tablelands the trail was almost vertical...one rock climb after another...frightening! And to make matters worse, there was a steady and sometimes gusty wind that unnerved us. The Tablelands was a plateau (we wondered if it was a mirage!), and we got to walk on level ground for a while before the trail climbed sharply again to the summit area. This last mile and a quarter was much easier, but still took us almost an hour. We reached the top 6 hours after we had left the bottom.The views were magnificent and we tried to concentrate on them rather than think of what we had to confront on the way down. We took photos at the Mt. Katahdin sign, had lunch and just took in the scenery for about 1/2 hour.And then it was the long, terrifying trip down (with less energy left than we had at 7 this morning!). Burly Girl did much of the downhill on her butt choosing to 'sit and slide' rather than stand and balance. Sometimes going down is harder than climbing, especially when you are going over a cliff and can't see where to place your foot.At any rate, we crept slowly down the mountain (again expecting to have to use our headlamps at the end of the day). Lo and behold, we reached Katahdin Stream Campground around 7:15pm--a 12 hour day. We were thrilled to be done and would never do this hike again!!! Burly Girl and Bugsy...doing the AT one day at a time...