Baxter State Park. Maine

4^th Sept

Today we moved again. We are now in a camp site near Millinocket at the southern end of Baxter State Park.  BSP is slightly different from other State Parks in that is was ‘set-up’ by a private individual with its own funding to maintain it.  This is the week after the public holiday and this is the quietest camp site yet; there are approximately enough spaces here for twenty plus Motor homes and about fifty plus tents and we are the only ones here. We have the place to ourselves!

Every so often when you are travelling you get to meet people who you know from the first time you meet that you will be friends. In our last RV park (Hill Top, Robbinston) we met two such people. Maggie and Grant fell straight into that category. They normally live in Florida but spend most of the summer each year in Maine. So we’ll have some visiting to do when we get to Florida.

5^Th Sept

Last night was a bit different. We had eaten our meal about 7pm and then we sat round our camp fire toasting marsh-mallows, in the middle of the woods completely on our own. Some would say rather romantic.  You could hear every single movement.

Once we got to bed it started to rain and continued all night.

This morning we got up just before 10am and had our breakfast. Had a lazy morning.

 

 

 

In the afternoon we drove up a road called Golden Road which is privately owned and used by logging trucks – so you can imagine the road surface – and it stretches all the way to Canada.  We kept an eye out to see if there were any Moose about and had a look at all the rapids along the Penobscot River. 

 

 

 

 

6^th Sept.

No lay-in this morning; up at 5.30 am, travelled to the bottom of Katahdin Mountain and started the climb at 7.30; got to the top (5,268ft) at 12.00.  This has to be the most difficult mountain we have ever climbed. The photos don’t really show the true scale of the difficulty, some of the boulders (too big to be classed as rocks) would have been easier if we had ropes.  Of the entire 6 mile trail up, about 200 meters is flat! 

 

 

The views from the top were terrific as it had to be about the most perfect weather for being on top of a mountain.  There were many people at the top too; most having come up different (and even more difficult) trails.  The ‘peak’ marks the start/end of the Appalachian Trail (which stretches down to Georgia).

We thought going up was difficult but the way down was even worse. That took us 5½ hrs.

We eventually got back home about 6.30; had a shower, cooked our evening meal and we were asleep by 9.00pm!