Head
New member
Well, after countless road trips, truck camping, and 8 years of boots on the trail, we have officially finished the NE 111 (and the New England 4000'ers) atop North Brother in Maine. Leading up to this trip were countless adventures in the Adirondacks, Catskills, Greens of VT., Whites of NH, and other ME 4000'ers.
The last was a stellar trip that took us from the Rangeley area (to do Abraham) to the amazing Baxter State Park for the final 3.
Abe was cool. Met a couple of cool middle aged fellas at the cabin, chatted for a couple, then quickly pushed to gain the summit. At the top, there stood the beat up fire tower which wasnt needed to gain excellent views. Nearby was the rock shelter. Inside, we saw a sleeping hiker...or so we thought. After an hour and further investigation (and a quick game of 'Rock Scissors Paper') I peered in to the entrance of the shelter and poked at the sleeping dead guy in his sleeping bag. Just a wadded up blanket...PHEEWW! We then cruised back to the truck and hit the highway for Baxter.
Bird had reserved a cabin at Kidney Pond and upon our arrival, we were pleasantly suprised by the accomodations. After a few brews and a monsterous mound of Mammy's pasta, we took a canoe out for a spin around the lake to check out some of the local wildlife. Later that evening, a thunderstorm hammered down and lulled us to sleep as we were in the comfort of our cabin
We awoke the next morning to blue skies and sunshine. The window of opportunity was looking pretty damn good for doing Katahdin. We drove to Roaring Brook and started a hot, humid hike into Chimney Pond. Met a buncha folks on the way in but we were the only ones on the supersteep Dudley trail, until we neared Pamola's summit. A few mishaps (Birdman froze on the descent into the col, then dropped his poles after almost topping out the Chimney, etc.) the Knife Edge was in our sights. After an hour on some hairy $h!t, we topped out on Baxter. We were the only ones there to enjoy some of the sickest views in the NE. After a few minutes of awesome scenery, we headed over to Hamlin which didn't take long due to the excellent trail over. We made it over there for 'golden hour' to take some great photos and vids as we then sat and took it all in for quite a while. We made it back to Chimney Pond by dusk where we met up with a bunch of folks and chatted before we boogied out to our lean to at Roaring Brook.
The next morning we awoke to 40 percent chance of showers and thunderbumpers but the hiking gods smiled upon us as we made our way to the top of North Brother and had gorgeous views and sunshine! It was a helluva way to finish the 115! After basking in our glory on top of N. Brother, we hurried out to beat the oncoming rain clouds and finished our trip with a night out in Millinocket....a sick seafood and steak dinner, spirits of all kinds, and 2 hot tubs eased the muscles as we reminised about our journey through the North East 111....
The last was a stellar trip that took us from the Rangeley area (to do Abraham) to the amazing Baxter State Park for the final 3.
Abe was cool. Met a couple of cool middle aged fellas at the cabin, chatted for a couple, then quickly pushed to gain the summit. At the top, there stood the beat up fire tower which wasnt needed to gain excellent views. Nearby was the rock shelter. Inside, we saw a sleeping hiker...or so we thought. After an hour and further investigation (and a quick game of 'Rock Scissors Paper') I peered in to the entrance of the shelter and poked at the sleeping dead guy in his sleeping bag. Just a wadded up blanket...PHEEWW! We then cruised back to the truck and hit the highway for Baxter.
Bird had reserved a cabin at Kidney Pond and upon our arrival, we were pleasantly suprised by the accomodations. After a few brews and a monsterous mound of Mammy's pasta, we took a canoe out for a spin around the lake to check out some of the local wildlife. Later that evening, a thunderstorm hammered down and lulled us to sleep as we were in the comfort of our cabin
We awoke the next morning to blue skies and sunshine. The window of opportunity was looking pretty damn good for doing Katahdin. We drove to Roaring Brook and started a hot, humid hike into Chimney Pond. Met a buncha folks on the way in but we were the only ones on the supersteep Dudley trail, until we neared Pamola's summit. A few mishaps (Birdman froze on the descent into the col, then dropped his poles after almost topping out the Chimney, etc.) the Knife Edge was in our sights. After an hour on some hairy $h!t, we topped out on Baxter. We were the only ones there to enjoy some of the sickest views in the NE. After a few minutes of awesome scenery, we headed over to Hamlin which didn't take long due to the excellent trail over. We made it over there for 'golden hour' to take some great photos and vids as we then sat and took it all in for quite a while. We made it back to Chimney Pond by dusk where we met up with a bunch of folks and chatted before we boogied out to our lean to at Roaring Brook.
The next morning we awoke to 40 percent chance of showers and thunderbumpers but the hiking gods smiled upon us as we made our way to the top of North Brother and had gorgeous views and sunshine! It was a helluva way to finish the 115! After basking in our glory on top of N. Brother, we hurried out to beat the oncoming rain clouds and finished our trip with a night out in Millinocket....a sick seafood and steak dinner, spirits of all kinds, and 2 hot tubs eased the muscles as we reminised about our journey through the North East 111....
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