TMax
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- Feb 12, 2005
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Drove up to Maine to join Hikethe115 (aka M&M) on her AT finish (see post here) and decided to finish my 115 at the same time. On Sunday (Sept 16) HarryK and I started off from the Marsten trailhead (having stayed at the Big Moose Inn... poor service and over-priced!) a little later than I was comfortable with but the Krazy Kanadian wasn't worried. He took his cooler (that contained you guessed it, BEER but also a very nice bottle of champagne that he had brought for M&M's AT finish) and set it outside the car so it wouldn't heat up over the course of the day. Now, if you keep reading this TR, this detail will become important
. We hit the privy (a very nice one that has open walls AND an air freshener) and started up the trail in 38 degree temps. The trail starts up fairly soon so we warmed up quickly. It maintains a fairly moderate pitch with some steeper sections and we were at the intersection in the col between The Brothers pretty quickly. We headed up to North Brother where the wind picked up but the views were pretty outstanding. We chatted with an "international" couple on the summit for quite a while before heading over to Fort. We found a strong herd path on the left side of the mountain and made pretty decent time considering that at times we couldn't see where we were placing our feet! Fort is very "couchie-like" in that you have to go down quite a ways to reach it. However, you do get really cool views from the top. We hit both summits just to be sure and then started the slog back up North Brother. We somehow managed to get off the herdpath we followed over but never figured out where we lost it. We followed another that went up the other side but eventually met back up with the original. Back down to the intersection for lunch (a regular trail felt good!) then the short climb up to the summit of South Brother. AMAZING!!! The view was simply spectacular. We sat mesmerized by the view of Hamlin and Katahdin. It was painful to pull myself away from there but we still had another peak to bag and the day was getting long. The trail from South Brother over to Coe is very interesting. It goes down and behind S. Bro and then climbs back up to the ridge before passing along on some pretty exposed stuff on Coe. More awesome views but we didn't stay long. We wanted to see what was in store for us as we headed down the Coe slide. Fortunately, the slide was mostly dry and HarryK navigated it almost perfectly. He did take one surprisingly graceful fall on his butt down about 20 feet. He got back up immediately and turned to me saying "you don't want to come down that way!" Once off the slide, the rest of the journey out was a very mellow hike. Back at the car and the cooler was gone. HarryK was very disappointed as he had wanted to surprise M&M with the champagne on top of Katahdin. We drove to Katahdin stream campground to meet M&M and the others.
OK, here's the wierd part.... As we are eating dinner, another thru-hiker walks over to us. He's drinking Harryk's favorite beer and holding a Canadian duty-free shop bag in his hand. HarryK says "hey, that's my stuff!" To make a VERY long story short, the champagne, beer and other cooler contents had been passed from thru-hiker to thru-hiker over the course of the day and wound up back where it started, something was odd here, but HarryK was happy just to have the champagne back.
Next morning we got an early start, letting M&M and her son John start off by themselves for Katahdin. The hike up the Hunt trail is spectacular! The scrambling is interesting, fun, and challenging! And it goes on and on and on with ever-improving views! Once at the top of the scrambles, the hike across the table-lands was a breeze. We made the last pitch up to the summit where M&M and a host of other thru-hikers were engaged in their picture taking and celebrations. The day was absolutely perfect with moderate temps, a slight breeze and great visibility. We celebrated for over an hour and then left that wonderful company to head over to Hamlin. You give up way to much elevation on the walk over... but it's a great couple of miles. We stopped often for photo ops. Once on the summit, we celebrated my 115 finish (thanks Harry!) and once again, found it difficult to leave. It was such a perfect day, but we knew we had to get back down the Hunt trail before daylight started to falter. We dropped back into the col and then started back up towards Baxter. You have to regain about 500' before you reach the connector trail. By the time we were back at the top of the boulders, I was feeling tired. Once we started down them, all my senses came alive and I didn't feel a tired muscle in my body! The adrenaline rush and natural high brought on by the challenge of that climb down was powerful. More incredible pictures (I think HarryK said he took more than 300, I took almost 200) as we worked our way down. We donned headlamps about a mile before the trailhead and then re-joined the thru-hikers in Millinocket.
An incredible couple of days... where else would you rather be???
. We hit the privy (a very nice one that has open walls AND an air freshener) and started up the trail in 38 degree temps. The trail starts up fairly soon so we warmed up quickly. It maintains a fairly moderate pitch with some steeper sections and we were at the intersection in the col between The Brothers pretty quickly. We headed up to North Brother where the wind picked up but the views were pretty outstanding. We chatted with an "international" couple on the summit for quite a while before heading over to Fort. We found a strong herd path on the left side of the mountain and made pretty decent time considering that at times we couldn't see where we were placing our feet! Fort is very "couchie-like" in that you have to go down quite a ways to reach it. However, you do get really cool views from the top. We hit both summits just to be sure and then started the slog back up North Brother. We somehow managed to get off the herdpath we followed over but never figured out where we lost it. We followed another that went up the other side but eventually met back up with the original. Back down to the intersection for lunch (a regular trail felt good!) then the short climb up to the summit of South Brother. AMAZING!!! The view was simply spectacular. We sat mesmerized by the view of Hamlin and Katahdin. It was painful to pull myself away from there but we still had another peak to bag and the day was getting long. The trail from South Brother over to Coe is very interesting. It goes down and behind S. Bro and then climbs back up to the ridge before passing along on some pretty exposed stuff on Coe. More awesome views but we didn't stay long. We wanted to see what was in store for us as we headed down the Coe slide. Fortunately, the slide was mostly dry and HarryK navigated it almost perfectly. He did take one surprisingly graceful fall on his butt down about 20 feet. He got back up immediately and turned to me saying "you don't want to come down that way!" Once off the slide, the rest of the journey out was a very mellow hike. Back at the car and the cooler was gone. HarryK was very disappointed as he had wanted to surprise M&M with the champagne on top of Katahdin. We drove to Katahdin stream campground to meet M&M and the others. OK, here's the wierd part.... As we are eating dinner, another thru-hiker walks over to us. He's drinking Harryk's favorite beer and holding a Canadian duty-free shop bag in his hand. HarryK says "hey, that's my stuff!" To make a VERY long story short, the champagne, beer and other cooler contents had been passed from thru-hiker to thru-hiker over the course of the day and wound up back where it started, something was odd here
, but HarryK was happy just to have the champagne back.Next morning we got an early start, letting M&M and her son John start off by themselves for Katahdin. The hike up the Hunt trail is spectacular! The scrambling is interesting, fun, and challenging! And it goes on and on and on with ever-improving views! Once at the top of the scrambles, the hike across the table-lands was a breeze. We made the last pitch up to the summit where M&M and a host of other thru-hikers were engaged in their picture taking and celebrations. The day was absolutely perfect with moderate temps, a slight breeze and great visibility. We celebrated for over an hour and then left that wonderful company to head over to Hamlin. You give up way to much elevation on the walk over... but it's a great couple of miles
. We stopped often for photo ops. Once on the summit, we celebrated my 115 finish (thanks Harry!) and once again, found it difficult to leave. It was such a perfect day, but we knew we had to get back down the Hunt trail before daylight started to falter. We dropped back into the col and then started back up towards Baxter. You have to regain about 500' before you reach the connector trail. By the time we were back at the top of the boulders, I was feeling tired. Once we started down them, all my senses came alive and I didn't feel a tired muscle in my body! The adrenaline rush and natural high brought on by the challenge of that climb down was powerful. More incredible pictures (I think HarryK said he took more than 300, I took almost 200) as we worked our way down. We donned headlamps about a mile before the trailhead and then re-joined the thru-hikers in Millinocket. An incredible couple of days... where else would you rather be???
