Baxter State Park, Maine

After taking a night to regroup at a hotel (the direct result of Adam’s hummus-making experience), we moved on to Baxter State Park in Maine, home of Mt. Katahdin, the highest peak in Maine. Baxter is much more primitive than Acadia- there is no potable water anywhere within the 200,000+ acre park. However, we did have a lovely lean-to facing the river, which we really could have used during the rain at Acadia. But of course, it didn’t really rain while we were at Baxter.

One of our main goals in the northeastern North America loop of our trip is to see a moose. In pursuit of that goal, we stopped at the nearby Stump Pond several times, which the lady at the information center had assured us that moose frequent. It was a very pretty pond with a great view of Katahdin, but unfortunately, no moose. We did see a deer, a snake, and umpteen million black flies- they were swarming so badly that we couldn’t stake out the pond to wait for a moose. So we returned to our campsite to try our hand at our latest camp food idea- tin foil pizza. We cheated by buying a pre-baked crust, not trusting the campfire to be even enough to cook dough well, but the pizza was an epic success!

The day after we arrived, we attempted Katahdin. The trail we chose was a 9 mile loop with an elevation gain of 3600 feet, which Janine was already not so thrilled about, being in the double-knee-brace club. However, it wasn’t too hot of a day, and we had a proper wake-up with a red squirrel trying desperately to steal our food- he even got IN our backpack and Adam found him on the front seat of the car! The trail was incredibly vertical and rocky- more like scrambling than hiking. We stopped at a very pretty stream to filter water, and another highlight was the snake we saw that had clearly eaten something quite recently. Getting towards the first summit though, Janine was really starting to lose her energy and the weather was looking dodgy (can you tell we’re staying with Brits while we write this?). After scoping out the summit of Pamola, the nearby peak, we saw rain coming over Katahdin. The route we had chosen was via a section called the Knife Edge, a very exposed and narrow path that you’d have to have a death wish to take in foul weather, so our hike was thwarted. Exhausted and disappointed, we hurried to get back below the tree line before the weather hit, which we only just managed to do. On the hike down, Janine was so exhausted that she decided her new life plan was to make it big as a blogger and make enough money to bulldoze Katahdin down. Adam thoroughly enjoyed the colorful diatribe accompanying this decision.

 On the road back to our campsite, we did manage to spot some exciting wildlife- a black bear! Janine was surprised that it wasn’t bigger. However, we left the park STILL not having seen a moose, and we’ve come up with a new theory. Moose are a mythical creature invented by the Maine, Alaskan, and Canadian tourism bureaus to lure tourists into their trap. “What should it look like?” “How about kind of like a deer, but HUGE?” “Sure, and let’s make the antlers look really funny!” Make some stuffed animals and the creature is born. We’ll let you know when either the Mainskanadian tourism bureau has bought our endorsement of this gargantuan lie, or we confirm that moose simply don’t exist.