Maine: Part 2

On Thursday we hit the road for Baxter State Park at about noon. The temperature was near 90 and the humidity was stifling. We decided Friendly's in Augusta would make an excellent lunch destination. Such a decision was an ill advised "hot mess" as they refer to it on the left coast. My chicken sandwich sat in my stomach for hours. It felt as if had eaten a giant rock burger for lunch. I wish I could say that the ice cream made it better, but alas it did not. I had such great memories of Friendly's dining in High School too. I remember when dozens of Scarborough Redskins scampered over to the South Portland location after sports practices, dances, and other activities. I guess I'm just not 16 anymore, but that doesn't explain all the ancient people filling up the diner booths. Maybe those folks were actually 30, but they looked much older because they had never stopped going to Friendly's.

We arrived at Baxter State Park just after 5 and after talking to a few rangers we decided to beat Hurricane Earl to the punch and head up Mt Katahdin Friday morning. Katahdin is a beast! A 5268 foot monster that dwarfs all other Maine mountains. It is also the northern most point along the Appalachian Trail. Chris and Ben decided that the Cathedral Trail from Chimney Pond to the summit would make for the most epic journey. Then the plan was to hook around the dangerous (According to Wikipedia, 19 people have died there since 1963) Knife Edge Trail to Paloma Peak.

The Cathedral Trail was the toughest climb I've ever done. The trail was more like free style rock climbing. 5-5.5 ft boulders dotted a near vertical landscape for close to a mile. I like to think of it this way. The average person walking down the street can probably put a mile on their pedometer in about 20 minutes. The mile from Chimney Pond to Baxter Peak took this handsome hand-full of new 30-year-olds a little more than 3 hours! The view from Baxter Peak was excellent even as clouds swirled the summit. We ate our lunches, snapped some photos, and as out feet carried us on to South Peak we proceeded to wonder if taking Knife Edge back was a good idea.

After a morning of climbing boulders the Knife Edge Trail looked like a piece of cake. Up and down 3 more jagged peaks and we're home free I thought. That isn't exactly how it went. The blue blazes on the rocks were supposed to indicate the proper trail to follow, but that and the first 4 options for the path of least resistance were almost always different routes. For much of Knife Edge we found ourselves clinging to granite spires looking for foot and hand holds with a 100 foot drop into nothingness behind our backs. Loose gravel would sometimes squirt out from under our hiking shoes and no less than 4 hours later we arrived on Paloma Peak with cramped muscles, sore knees, and a burning desire to teleport back to camp with more than 3 miles of hiking still ahead.

Not long after leaving Paloma we bumped into Alison (one of our partners in camping) who wisely decided to ditch the 13 hour adventure in favor of keeping her body fully functional for the rest of the weekend. She provided a much needed lift in spirit for the remainder of our journey down the mountain.