August 28, 2008
Ed Hawkins is hosting his annual Baxter State Park Trip. This will be my 2nd year attending. I'm looking forward to 5 straight days of hiking. After stopping in Millinocket to fill my cooler with ice, I headed up to the park.
There's a beautiful mural painted on a rock several miles before the park.
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Katahdin coming into view.
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I arrived at the gate with one vehicle in front of me. I heard the person driving state they were with the Ed Hawkins group. It was Gary and Alberta who I had met last year. I followed them for several miles up the dusty, tote road. I got off at Katahdin Stream for my first hike. The first mile was a repeat of last year when I hiked the Appalachian Trail through this section.
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After an easy first mile, I came to the trail for the Owl.
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The trail became steeper here as I started to gain in elevation, but it wasn't 'Baxter State Park steep'.
After a while, I came out to my first view.
Looking up to Baxter Peak
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A few minutes later, The Owl came into view.
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Like a lot of peaks in the park, the majority of the elevation gain was saved for the end. The trail was quite steep. I finally broke out into the open.
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Now the scrambling started.
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Nice balancing act
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Tight squeeze
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Almost there
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A couple minutes later I reached the 3736' summit of The Owl.
Looking down from the summit.
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Looking over to some other major peaks in the park: Doubletop, O-J-I, Coe, and South Brother.
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There was a short herd path leading down from the summit to another rocky outlook. I went to investigate. Here's a view looking back up to the summit.
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It was such a beautiful day that I spent 30 minutes relaxing at the summit. For a 360° video clip from the summit click here. I returned over the same route. I got back in my car and continued up the Tote Road.
I was surprised not to see Ed's truck at the Marston Trailhead. There are three 4000 footers in the park. Ed makes sure he hikes them each year, and he had planned to start with North Brother. I figured he must have finished and was already at the campsite. Several more dusty miles up the road and I was at the Nesowadnehunk campground. I found the groupsite, but Ed wasn't there either. There were 3 tents already set up, but no one around. I assumed one belonged to Gary and Alberta who I knew were already in the park. They must have set up camp and gone off for a hike. I was unsure of the other two tents. By the time I had my tent up, there was still no one around.
The day was so beautiful I decided to drive back down the Tote Road for a mile or two to a swimming area at Ledge Falls. The area was busy with activity, but I didn't recognize anyone. By the time I arrived back to camp, two more hikers had arrived. I hadn't met them before, they were Annie and Leslie. Annie drives a Mini Cooper. How they got all their camping and hiking stuff in that little car I'll never now. The group would later joke that they did it by bringing 'mini' everything: a mini tent, mini sleeping bag, mini Oreos, mini Ritz crackers etc... Although Annie drive's a Mini, she is planning a trip to the base camp of Mount Everest. There is certainly nothing mini about that.
A while later Gary and Alberta showed up. (To see some pictures that Gary took from this trip click here)Then Darcy and her friend Bob who I hadn't met before. Well all the tents that were set up before I got here were now accounted for. But where was Ed? I wasn't surprised not to see a tent for him since he sleeps in the back of his truck, but where was he? All we could figure was that it was such a nice day he decided to bag Baxter Peak and Hamlin instead of North Brother. There was also someone else missing. Where was Mike, the god of fire? With him unaccounted for, I was given temporary, honorary fire god privileges to get the evening campfire going. About 9:00 pm, Ed arrived. Like we thought, he bagged Baxter and Hamlin. "It was too nice a day," he said. He let us know that there were some cancellations this year, so the group would be small. There were just eight of us. Hopefully, more hikers will join us tomorrow.
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