[at-l] Maine Trip Report, Part 3: Peakbagging in Baxter State Park

[papabear.nyc at verizon.net (Papa Bear)]

Maine Trip Report, Part 3: Peakbagging in Baxter State Park

For a full picture album of this trip: http://gallery.backcountry.net/papabear_2004_Baxter

After summiting Katahdin on September 7th, the Appalachian Trail part of our journey was over, but we were scheduled to stay in the area until September 14. For the last 4 days of this plan (starting September 10th) Rambler and I we would meet 2 other friends and stay in the park.  Until then, the two of us opted to stay at the Big Moose Inn, about 10 miles south of the park entrance.  This is a well run place with options for staying in Inn rooms, staying in housekeeping cabins, or camping out.  We stayed the 3 nights at Big Moose in one of the cabins. This was convenient and allowed us to cook some of our meals. The small cabin would actually hold 4, and if you were willing to pack that many into the small space, it would be quite economical.  Although Rambler and I had originally scheduled 1 spare day, we found that we had 2 days on our own (having moved through the 100 Mile Wilderness a bit faster than planned), and since we were rearing to go, we decided to get a "head start" on our peakbagging.  This would alleviate the pressure to try for long multiple-peak days when our friends met us.

Wednesday, September 8: Doubletop Mountain

Doubletop is on the New England Fifty Finest (highest prominence) List (#39, with a prominence of 2079').  It has a very distinct shape and is hard to miss from the south and west side of Katahdin. When looked at straight from the south, it has a distinct pyramidal shape. From just about every other angle, it has an unmistakable double-topped profile.

Doubletop end-on: http://gallery.backcountry.net/albums/papabear_2004_Baxter/aab.sized.jpg
Doubletop from Katahdin: http://gallery.backcountry.net/albums/papabear_2004_Katahdin/ace.sized.jpg

It's prominence is obvious.  The Nesowadnehuk Stream separates it from the main Katahdin massif. It "stands alone" as it were, the hallmark of a prominent peak.

The day dawned with cloudy weather and chances of showers.  You can get a feeling for the day's weather from the first photo above.  Undeterred, we got ourselves up and going early and arrived at the park's south gate just after 7:00 AM.  Since it was mid-week and after Labor Day, and a potentially rainy day as well, the park would not be crowded today, and we had no trouble getting in and found no one else at the trailhead when we got there around 8:00 AM.  I had decided I must ration my pictures for the remainder of our trip since I was running out of space on the memory card in my digital camera.  So extraneous views of scenery were to be taboo.  However this rule was quickly abandoned when we saw a huge bull moose at a road side pond on our ride in:

Moose at Stump Pond: http://gallery.backcountry.net/albums/papabear_2004_Baxter/aaa.sized.jpg

Having seen our first moose for the entire trip, we continued on towards Kidney Pond where we would start today's hike.  We would take the route from the south. Although the trail actually starts at Kidney Pond, we opted to take a "short cut" and parked right after the bridge where we could get onto the woods road which led to the Slaughter Pond Trail, a much more direct route.  This route seems to have been recently relocated by some active beavers: where there once was a stream crossing, there was now a substantial beaver pond, and the trail went over the beaver dam before circling around back to the established route.  At about .7 miles from the car we picked up the Doubletop Trail which led 3.5 miles to the summit.

The weather held, even though it was threatening most of the morning.  The terrain was easy for about 1.5 miles and then got progressively steeper and finally in the last .5 miles we scrambled over several very steep ledges.  We got to the south peak about 10:30, and then did the easy traverse of the open ridge line to the slightly higher north peak where we arrived about 10:45.  We saw clouds billowing over the top portion of Katahdin to the east, and we were very happy that we had summited yesterday, with it's picture perfect weather, rather than today.  It would not be much fun, and perhaps even a bit dangerous to summit Katahdin today.

At the south peak, looking north: http://gallery.backcountry.net/albums/papabear_2004_Baxter/aac.sized.jpg
At the north peak, looking south: http://gallery.backcountry.net/albums/papabear_2004_Baxter/aad.sized.jpg

We were concerned that going down the steep section, especially if it started to rain, would be tough, so we did not linger.  But surprisingly, going down proved easier than up, and we kept up a good pace and arrived back at the car at 1:15 PM.  The sun was now burning through the clouds and it turned out to be a pretty good day after all.  Besides a few mosquitoes near the bottom, we had no complaints.  Doubletop is a great little mountain and we highly recommend it. The climbing is good and the views are terrific.  On a clear weather day the views, especially of Katahdin from the west, would be fantastic.  If you have two cars, consider spotting one at one end and start at the other.  We were told coming from the north is the preferred direction, but we thought our route from the south was perfectly nice.

Distance: 8.4 miles, elevation gain: 2450', time: 5:15.

Thursday, September 9: South Brother and Coe

Our original plan (which had only one spare day) was to do all four of the "Brothers" (Coe, South Brother, North Brother and Fort) on Saturday when our friends were with us.  Although we knew this was doable, we did not relish the long day entailed, so we sought a way to get a head start, so to speak.  Of the 4 peaks, North Brother and Fort were the most exposed and had perhaps the better views, so we opted to do the southern two and give up the views on this rainy day.  The grand plan was to pick up the 5 Hundred Highest/4ks in the Park that I had never done (the four "Brothers" plus Hamlin) and the two Fifty Finest (Doubletop and Traveler).  Having done Doubletop the day before, and getting South Brother and Coe today would put us in a good position to meet our goal.

It started raining in earnest overnight and the morning brought moderate showers off and on.  We got to the gate by 7:00 AM and said we were planning to hike the Marston Trail.  The ranger said hiking the Brothers was "not recommended".  We said we were not hiking to North Brother, just South Brother and Coe and that we would not climb the Coe Slide: we would go in from South Brother and then return the same way.  She said OK but made sure we understood that the summits would be "socked in".  Our intended route would actually be longer than a normal loop going up the Coe Slide and then back to the Brothers, but we knew the slide would be rather unsafe in the steady rain and wind.

We arrived at the Marston trailhead at 7:42 AM, and naturally, we were the only car.  I guess more sensible folks (i.e. everyone else) decided it was not "propitious" to be hiking above tree line today.  Due to conditions, I took NO pictures whatsoever today.  The rain continued light to moderate, but steady.  We were basically soaked but the pace was fairly steady, so with our raingear we were comfortable.

The trail up was fairly easy.  The terrain consists of a lower easy section followed by a steep pitch up to a pond. This would have been a lovely sight were it not for the rain, and actually it was rather nice even in the rain.  After skirting the pond, there was another steep section over ledges after which we arrived at the nearly flat upland area that extended all the way from North Brother to Coe.  We turned to the south where the trail continued on to North Brother and followed the Mount Coe Trail towards South Brother.  We soon arrived at the South Brother cut off trail.  Although just .3 miles, this was rather steep over numerous boulders and very near the top rises above tree line.  At this point we suddenly realized this was not just a rainy day, but a very WINDY day.  I estimated the wind at above 40 MPH at the summit of South Brother (my rule of thumb is when it's hard to stand up, it's about 40 MPH). We should have realized that since this storm was the remnant of Hurricane Francis, that of course there would be wind: what were we thinking?  We bagged the peak and immediately turned around and fled back below tree line where once again it was just moderate but steady rain.

So that was one down and one to go.  We returned quickly to the Mount Coe Trail and continued about another mile towards that peak.  When you see these peaks from a distance (such as when we climbed the Hunt Trail on Tuesday) you notice South Brother has a broad rounded top, but Coe has a very narrow pointy top.  

When we got to the last few tenths of a mile from the Coe summit we found ourselves climbing a ridge line from the col, and then suddenly hitting the upper ridge which swings to the west (and eventually heads over towards OJI via the Coe Slide).  The upper part was less steep then South Brother and was rather easy until we suddenly made the right hand turn near the top and the full force of the wind hit us.  Oh, how I wish we could return here on a clear day (we can of course).  The slope towards the southeast fell away steeply from the ridge top and although we saw just mist and cloud, you knew this was a dramatic exposed spot with potentially fantastic views across towards Katahdin.   But not today.  We quickly made our way along the ridge to the summit, and as before, quickly turned and retreated the way we had come.  What drama we had missed out on in views, had been partly made up for in the wind!  Dramatic would be an understatement.  We had reached the Coe summit at 11:12 and were now on the way back towards the car.

On the way back we noticed the fir waves in the broad upland area below the peaks. They were so distinct you could se the progression from recent standing dead trees, with small new growth below, to progressively older dead trees with larger new growth and eventually to the mature forest and then to the next wave.  It was a textbook example of this phenomenon.  On the way down the steeper section, the mud was slipperier and I almost wiped out in a few places.  We finally made it back to the car by a little after 2:00 PM.  It had not been a fun day, but I felt a strong sense of accomplishment.  Doing something hard, even if not fun, is always better than just staying home, don't you think?

Our gear was so wet we decided to make an unscheduled trip to the Laundromat in Millinocket. But that meant we could stop for dinner at the Pizza place and buy a six-pack of cold ones, so that was not a bad thing at all!

Distance: 11.6 miles, elevation gain: 3760', time: 6:20.

Friday, September 10:  Peak of the Ridges and Traveler attempt

We had been planning on meeting Funky Freddie and Josef early on Friday, and also Spencer who was planning on hiking with us for the day, and climb The Traveler.  The forecast was getting worse and worse. First we sent word that the meeting should be put back from 8 AM till 10 to give the rain time to clear, but eventually we realized it would rain all day Friday, so we sent out word to cancel the Traveler climb.  "Sending out word" meat I called my wife, who then left, messages and hopefully our friends, who were spending some time in VERY northern Maine (Madawaska) and hoped that the message would get through via Josef's wife in New York.  Well it did and those two slept in late and finally drove through heavy rain down to Baxter late on Friday afternoon.  Spencer was another story.  When I called Thursday evening, his girl friend said it was too late, he had already headed up and was spending the night at the Upper South Branch Pond bunkhouse.  What to do?  Not wanting to leave Spencer in the lurch, we decided to drive up and meet him at 10, and then decide what we would do, depending on the immediate weather conditions.

So, we passed the gate about 8:00 AM and made good time, arriving at the trailhead around 9:30.  Spencer had been out in a canoe (he said the sky was clear at 6:00 AM) and came by about 9:45.  It had clouded over and we had passed through some showers on the way, but it was not raining at that moment, so we decided to take a stab at it and off we went.

At the start of the Center Ridges trail: http://gallery.backcountry.net/albums/papabear_2004_Baxter/adq.sized.jpg

We moved easily along the Pogy Notch Trail and then headed up the Center Ridges Trail.  One lucky break was that the park rangers had just opened a trail over The Traveler, so we should have no problem with what used to be a bushwhack from Peak of the Ridges to The Traveler - that is if the weather cooperated.  We climbed steeply over boulders and ledges and vast quantities of felsenmeer and got into the clouds at about 2000'.  At this point we started getting wet.  At first we figured it was just the cloud, but eventually we realized, hey! it's raining.  The going was rather slow since we were moving over very rough sections of rock, and things were starting to get seriously wet.  I was thinking maybe this may not be such a hot idea.  As we climbed higher, the visibility dropped and the wind picked up and we were very wet.  Near the top of the Peak of the Ridges we had to move along a jagged pinnacle which was entirely exposed.  We reached the summit of this peak at 12:10 and huddled for a few minutes and tried to get out of the wind and eat some food for energy. I had gloves on but was still feeling rather chilled.

The next part was about .8 miles to The Traveler Peak.  Much of this was along a narrow exposed ridge.  We knew we would drop about 300' and then climb about 600' so things did not look good.  At about 12:30, I said maybe we should stop, and there was instant agreement.  Everyone had the same till-then unspoken thoughts.  Spencer was a stalwart and took the sweep position.  Getting back down would be dangerous since down is always the tougher direction, we were cold, and things were getting wetter by the minute.  But we slogged along the seemingly endless ridge and eventually got down on the more sheltered part of the mountain and eventually it was just a hike in the rain.  I managed to slip and stumble several times but never quite hit the dirt, so I took some small consolation in that.

When we got lower down we met a few hikers who were back-packing in to Russell Pond.  They seemed happy enough.  The prospects for a clear day tomorrow must have given them some hope.  When we passed by Lower South Branch Pond before getting back to the car, not one of us remembered passing it on the way up!  Was this mass hysteria?  More likely mass inattention.  We finally got back to the car at 3:40 PM, cold, wet and tired, but thankfully safe.  

We said goodbye to Spencer, who would be hiking again in the park tomorrow, and headed for the Nosowadnehuk Campground where we were staying for the night.  Fred and Josef showed up around 7:00 PM.  They had had an uneventful day driving in the rain.  We were now together, looking forward to some overdue good weather and good hiking for the next 4 days.

Distance: 7.5 miles, elevation gain: 2730', time: 5:46.