The summer of '75 found me in Maine, peakbagging the Hundred Highest.
My physical condition was excellent. During a 19-day period I climbed 21 peaks. The first part of the trip, a friend and I climbed together. We managed well without a car, hitchhiking and backpacking from area to area. By a remarkable coincidence, we hitched a ride with the caretaker of a private camp, who opened a locked gate and drove us to the foot of Snow Mountain. This gave us easy access to Boundary Peak.
My friend returned home, and the last part of the trip I spent alone in Baxter State Park. Only one ascent was with another hiker, on Mount Coe, where the summit forest sparkled delightfully, covered in rime ice. Otherwise I was on my own. I recall a wonderful, sunny day on Katahdin climbing the knife edge.
I signed out for a multi-day backpack to finish my summit list. Somewhere I read a park regulation prohibiting solo bushwhacking. I figured the park authorities would read my itinerary, notice I was bushwhacking alone, and put an end to my plans.
The time arrived to start up the mountain and not a peep from the authorities. Well then, onward! I camped at Chimney Pond. At dusk, I heard a rustling among the pines at the edge of the forest. Someone had set out food to lure animals. I was both perturbed and pleased. It is the only time I have seen pine martens in the wild. Next morning no rangers materialized to stop my trek. Upward!
The view from Katahdin’s Hamlin Peak was marvelous. Continuing north I went down the trail, dropped my pack, and descended to Klondike Pond. The terrain was strange, populated with yawning pits covered with moss and luxurious vegetation. Were there any hidden pits, like the hidden crevasses on a glacier? If I fell through it would be days before searchers came looking. I spent the night at the Davis Pond lean-to, encountering a tame deer seeking food. I gave it none, hoping others would refrain from feeding wild animals.
Fort Mountain was my next objective; the map showed an old trail on the north side. According to the 1971 edition of the AMC Maine Mountain guide, “This route is not recommended for any but the most experienced hikers and then only with permission of the Ranger at Russell Pond.” I recall following a continuous path lower down. Above it petered out, but now and again I encountered the overgrown footbed. So what! It was a sunny day and the bushwhacking enjoyable. The last section of my route went over the Brothers, North and South. At the end of the day I descended the Marston Trail to the road.
And there on the road a ranger caught up with me. “We were going to expel you from the Park,” he said. They had indeed read my itinerary, and they intended to enforce regulations. The matter was moot, as I was already on my way out of the park.
Years later I would discover the incident survived as a footnote of peakbagging lore. The AMC Four Thousand Footer Committee publishes an informal document, “Routes to New England Hundred Highest Peaks“. In that work, author Gene Daniell described Baxter as “the most tightly regulated park in the US”. With reference to Fort Mountain, he wrote that park authorities may view it as “a bushwhack for which special permission could be required.” He noted how “using the old route from Russell Pond to Fort without permission led to the expulsion from the Park of one person of my acquaintance.”
For many mountain memories I savor that summer.
And the rules? Broken by a younger, selfish self I suppose with a (minimal) inconvenience to the rangers. Later I became a ranger myself as well as wilderness guide who participated in rescues, though not in Baxter.
I still wrestle with the desire to go, to climb--and to heck with the rules. I have fantasies about secretly traversing off-limits territory, places where the presence of human beings is verboten. The Klondike in Baxter, for instance, or Mount Kailas. People have trodden the Klondike, and somebody will climb Kailas one day, but it won't be by me. Still I find myself pushing the envelope of the acceptable. Why? A desire to see, explore and know the wild out-there, to experience unknown corners of the world. A desire always present and never vanishing.
My physical condition was excellent. During a 19-day period I climbed 21 peaks. The first part of the trip, a friend and I climbed together. We managed well without a car, hitchhiking and backpacking from area to area. By a remarkable coincidence, we hitched a ride with the caretaker of a private camp, who opened a locked gate and drove us to the foot of Snow Mountain. This gave us easy access to Boundary Peak.
My friend returned home, and the last part of the trip I spent alone in Baxter State Park. Only one ascent was with another hiker, on Mount Coe, where the summit forest sparkled delightfully, covered in rime ice. Otherwise I was on my own. I recall a wonderful, sunny day on Katahdin climbing the knife edge.
I signed out for a multi-day backpack to finish my summit list. Somewhere I read a park regulation prohibiting solo bushwhacking. I figured the park authorities would read my itinerary, notice I was bushwhacking alone, and put an end to my plans.
The time arrived to start up the mountain and not a peep from the authorities. Well then, onward! I camped at Chimney Pond. At dusk, I heard a rustling among the pines at the edge of the forest. Someone had set out food to lure animals. I was both perturbed and pleased. It is the only time I have seen pine martens in the wild. Next morning no rangers materialized to stop my trek. Upward!
The view from Katahdin’s Hamlin Peak was marvelous. Continuing north I went down the trail, dropped my pack, and descended to Klondike Pond. The terrain was strange, populated with yawning pits covered with moss and luxurious vegetation. Were there any hidden pits, like the hidden crevasses on a glacier? If I fell through it would be days before searchers came looking. I spent the night at the Davis Pond lean-to, encountering a tame deer seeking food. I gave it none, hoping others would refrain from feeding wild animals.
Fort Mountain was my next objective; the map showed an old trail on the north side. According to the 1971 edition of the AMC Maine Mountain guide, “This route is not recommended for any but the most experienced hikers and then only with permission of the Ranger at Russell Pond.” I recall following a continuous path lower down. Above it petered out, but now and again I encountered the overgrown footbed. So what! It was a sunny day and the bushwhacking enjoyable. The last section of my route went over the Brothers, North and South. At the end of the day I descended the Marston Trail to the road.
And there on the road a ranger caught up with me. “We were going to expel you from the Park,” he said. They had indeed read my itinerary, and they intended to enforce regulations. The matter was moot, as I was already on my way out of the park.
Years later I would discover the incident survived as a footnote of peakbagging lore. The AMC Four Thousand Footer Committee publishes an informal document, “Routes to New England Hundred Highest Peaks“. In that work, author Gene Daniell described Baxter as “the most tightly regulated park in the US”. With reference to Fort Mountain, he wrote that park authorities may view it as “a bushwhack for which special permission could be required.” He noted how “using the old route from Russell Pond to Fort without permission led to the expulsion from the Park of one person of my acquaintance.”
For many mountain memories I savor that summer.
And the rules? Broken by a younger, selfish self I suppose with a (minimal) inconvenience to the rangers. Later I became a ranger myself as well as wilderness guide who participated in rescues, though not in Baxter.
I still wrestle with the desire to go, to climb--and to heck with the rules. I have fantasies about secretly traversing off-limits territory, places where the presence of human beings is verboten. The Klondike in Baxter, for instance, or Mount Kailas. People have trodden the Klondike, and somebody will climb Kailas one day, but it won't be by me. Still I find myself pushing the envelope of the acceptable. Why? A desire to see, explore and know the wild out-there, to experience unknown corners of the world. A desire always present and never vanishing.
