#5. Climbing Mt Katahdin in Maine: 12-13 August 2019

After climbing four U.S. highpoints with Julie Hernandez and trekking together for six days in Nepal, it was inevitable that I’d need to introduce her to Katahdin, the highest mountain in Maine. I no longer needed to check it off as a high point, but climbing Katahdin each year remained the marker of a successful summer vacation in Maine.

A few days earlier on a conference call with Julie (a native of France) and Maria Herdoiza (a native of Ecuador) about our family planning work in the Democratic Republic of Congo, I mentioned that I was in my favorite August work routine: sitting at a table at Holbrook Pond, happily answering email and writing reports as I listened to the loons. As the call continued, both googled “loon.”  They had both recently gotten their green cards, and Julie quipped, “Good thing 'loon' wasn’t on the citizenship test.” Shortly after we arrived at the camp and settled in, Julie rushed into the room and asked, “What is that sound?” My answer: the loon. “Oh, I thought it might be a coyote.”

On Day 2 of her trip, we headed for Millinocket, Maine, some 90 minutes north of our camp. We were staying at Big Moose Inn, a lodge straight out of central casting, with a stuffed moose head over the fireplace and steep rickety stairs. I was intent on Julie’s getting the best possible experience of hiking Katahdin, which in my book meant hiking from the trailhead at Roaring Brook into Chimney Pond, climbing the Cathedral Trail, en route to Baxter Peak, crossing the one-mile Knife Edge, then returning to the Roaring Brook trailhead. I had lined up one of the coveted day-parking passes for Roaring Brook for August 12. The problem with this plan was that I didn’t feel I’d have the stamina to do Cathedral Trail with her, and I wanted her to have the fun of scampering up the mountain at her own pace. Thus, I had lined up Cliff Young, a fellow highpointer club member from Sydney, Maine, who is 23 days younger than I am, to hike with me while Julie took off on her own.

The weather did not cooperate. For the week beforehand that we relentlessly tracked www.mountain-forecast.com, the forecast went from rain to thunderstorms on the planned day of our climb. After my run-in with lightning in Connecticut a year earlier, I had no interest in attempting the mountain under those conditions. I consulted Cliff as to whether he could postpone until August 13. He couldn’t. Because I had anticipated a possible glitch in the weather, I’d managed to get a second day-parking pass for August 13 (forecast to have glorious weather), though only for Katahdin Stream Campground, located far from Roaring Brook. Julie and I began mentally planning out the scenario whereby she’d find a ride into Roaring Brook, then we'd take different trails to the summit. She was uncomfortable letting me climb on my own, but I assured her that during the summer, “no one climbs alone on Katahdin.”

In the meantime, Cliff had a nonrefundable reservation at a Millinocket motel for the eve of our hike on August 12, and we decided to move to Plan B: driving to Roaring Brook at the crack of dawn, assessing the weather, and at a minimum hiking 0.75 miles to Sandy Stream Pond, “where you’re guaranteed to see a moose." I quickly reworded my promise to Julie, “where you’re almost guaranteed to see a moose.” If the weather improved, Cliff and Julie would continue along the same trail toward South Turner, a mountain considered “moderate“ in difficulty with breathtaking views at the top, from which one could return quickly if the weather turned bad. I planned to stay back to save my energy for our climb to the summit the following day.

Cliff met up with us at 5:30 AM at the Big Moose Inn, so we could drive together to the Baxter Park toll gate, where we took our place in line with the other day-parking pass holders. Those who did not have a pass but hoped to get in on a standby basis waited anxiously in their cars in a parallel line. The gray clouds overhead did not portend well, but since showers were not expected until 11 AM, the three of us took off quickly for Sandy Stream Pond. Alas, from three separate overlooks at the pond, we failed to see a single moose. Julie mentioned seeing a refrigerator magnet in the Trading Post gift shop that said, “I came all the way to Maine, and I didn’t see one lousy moose.” I could see that I’d be purchasing that magnet for her if we didn’t do better on the return trip.

Since Julie had just met Cliff, I needed to reconsider sending them off without me to South Turner. Reminding myself that this would not be a strenuous hike, I made the snap decision to join them. Within 15 minutes, it became evident that Julie was moving at a far faster pace than Cliff and I were. I encouraged her to take off on her own and wait for us at the top, while Cliff and I followed at our own pace.

The trail up South Turner ran for 1.1 miles below the treeline and a final 0.2 miles up a steep embankment of medium-sized boulders and scree. As Cliff and I emerged from the treeline, rain threatened and the wind picked up. We scrambled to the top as quickly as possible, intending to turn around as soon as we could. We found Julie at the summit, wrapped in her “toaster oven” parka, chatting with a guy we’d seen the previous night at the Big Moose Inn. “I’ve got my ride into Roaring Brook tomorrow,” Julie beamed. Kevin, an architect who grew up in Lewiston, ME, was trying to check off the three final mountains he needed to complete all fourteen 4,000-foot peaks in Maine. His buddies had canceled at the last minute, and he seemed happy to have some company. The weather held long enough for us to snap some photos at the top, then head down, taking bets on whether we would see a moose at Sandy Stream Pond on our return. By now, the odds seemed low, and indeed we had no luck.

With time on our hands, we decided to have a late lunch at the Appalachian Café in Millinocket and indulge in some local home cooking complete with a raspberry turnover. Since Katahdin is the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail, “completers” often celebrate the end of their 2198-mile journey from Georgia to Maine at the Appalachian Café, appropriately decorated with hiking paraphernalia.

The weather for Tuesday, August 13, promised to be glorious, and except for a few clouds, it was. At the crack of dawn, Julie took off with Kevin from the Big Moose Inn, so they could be among the first in line when the toll gate opened at 6 AM.  I followed solo to my destination, the Katahdin Stream Campground. Although I would have preferred climbing the Abol Trail (the "elevator to the top," considered the fastest trail to the summit), no parking passes were available at the Abol campground on the 13th. Had I been smart, I would have parked at Katahdin Stream Campground, hitched back the three miles to Abol, then hiked a challenging but doable trail up Abol. Instead, I resigned myself to hiking Hunt, the final segment of the Appalachian Trail.

If I had climbed the Hunt Trail before, it would have been over 40 years earlier, and I was in for a rude surprise. I had forgotten that the boulders on Hunt were on a par with those on Cathedral, which I had purposely avoided because of the difficulty. True, this trail was easier than three highpoints I completed in 2017-18 that required technical climbing (Mt. Hood in Oregon, Borah Peak in Idaho, and Mt. Whitney in California). But with my 70th birthday and two incidents of violently painful back spasms in my recent past, I had lost my intrepid spirit and was hesitant to overdo it.  

Once on the Hunt Trail, there was no turning back. Fellow hikers finding this gray-haired woman solo on the trail offered encouragement.

If there was one benefit to Hunt in late summer, it was the strong likelihood of encountering "through hikers" (Georgia to Maine) on their very last stretch of the Appalachian Trail. That day, I ran into no less than five hikers who were within hours of attaining this momentous achievement. They couldn’t have been more different. Early on the trail, I had passed a man in his late-70s who had done the Appalachian Trail in segments and hoped this would be his day to summit. He was accompanied by his wife, whom I judged to be in her 60s, a very strong hiker in her own right. She and I boosted each other over several of the more challenging boulders midway up the trail. As I started up the final section of serious boulders, she decided to hold back and help her husband, whom she feared might not make it over this challenging section. Sadly, I never saw them at the summit. In strong contrast, a young woman came whipping up the trail, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Is everything OK?” I asked? “Yes," she stammered, “it’s so beautiful here, and I'm so emotional to be finishing.” Another completer was a 45-year-old, 6’2” blond Adonis, who looked as though he’d be equally comfortable in a three-piece business suit as his hiking gear. He had climbed the Appalachian Trail in eight segments, systematically completing one segment each year, and he was finishing that morning. I imagined him squeezing those hiking episodes into his schedule as he climbed the corporate ladder.

The plan was to meet up with Julie at the summit, which she would reach hours before me. However, for her to experience the Knife Edge and then accompany me down the mountain, she would have to cross the Knife Edge twice, down and back. I thought nothing of proposing this plan, and she gamely accepted the challenge. However, after my harrowing trip up the Hunt Trail, I had made an executive decision to return via the Abol Trail. My problem was now to get word to Julie of this new route, when we had no cell phone service at the summit. As different groups passed me on the trail, I asked each one to “look for Julie; she’s tall, slender, and has a large black braid down her back. If you find her, tell her that Jane is OK, but she needs to descend the Abol Trail.”

Five hours and 30 minutes after starting, I found myself with some 75 others at Baxter Peak, the summit of Katahdin. Julie was nowhere in sight, but I was happy to settle in for a break and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I ran into “Honeybee” (her trail name), another completer who had passed me on the Hunt trail. She explained that when she got to the summit, she had shouted out, "Julie? Is anyone here named Julie?"  But the only answer she got back was, “Oh, you’re looking for Julie, too?”

I hadn’t been on my lunch break for 20 minutes when Julie strolled up the final stretch of the Knife Edge. I was elated and relieved that we'd managed to connect. We compared war stories. She regaled me with anecdotes of going down and back the Knife Edge, where she reverted to her Alpine mountain guide mode to help numerous climbers over one particularly difficult spot known as the “Chimney.“ When she was on the far end of the Knife Edge, she looked back as black clouds formed over Baxter Peak. She still had to return over the Knife Edge to the summit and momentarily questioned the wisdom of our plan. But shortly thereafter, those clouds dispersed, and she returned to Baxter Peak safely.

My contribution to our discussion was that, in no uncertain terms, I was not going down the Hunt Trail. After finishing lunch, we headed down the one mile of rocky, exposed tableland to the start of the Abol Trail.

From the turnoff at Thoreau Spring, we immediately started down the two-mile boulder slide, difficult but less arduous than Hunt. By now, I was getting tired, and Julie went into camp counselor mode, ensuring that I’d get down the mountain safely. A half hour into the descent on Abol, I must have gathered too much steam, lost my balance, and tumbled down 20 feet on a bed of scree. Julie was far more freaked out than I was, and she insisted we sit tight for a few minutes until my leg stopped shaking and we could assess the damage. Fortunately, I hadn’t hit my head; I had a bloody but superficial gash on my calf, but nothing major. At the time, I didn't realize the longer-term consequences of this fall: I would have to hear about it on every subsequent mountain we hiked together.

The rest of the trip down was uneventful. We continued to have a panoramic view of the northern Maine wilderness until we hit the treeline. Not a road or building in sight. Julie confessed that she was beginning to feel the effects of 10 miles of hiking over rugged terrain on her compromised knees. But we both took solace that the trailhead was only a couple of hours away. When we arrived, the ranger's station at the trailhead was a welcome sight for sore eyes.

One drawback of descending via the Abol Trail was that it left us 2.3 miles from our car at Katadhin Stream Campground. As I sank exhausted into a rocking chair on the porch of the ranger station at Abol Campground, Julie gamely took off on foot in search of our car. “Surely someone will drive by and give you a ride,” I commented from the comfort of my chair. Thirty minutes later, she pulled into the Abol Campground parking lot in our rental car, grumbling that two cars had passed her on the tote road before a third one picked her up.

Our final challenge of the day was to return to Holbrook Pond (over two hours away) in time for dinner with my sisters. My sister Helen and her husband Hilly were staying with us at the camp, and Liz had come to Maine to visit her high school friend Janet Bertucci. We had planned the sisters’ dinner weeks in advance, before we realized that the weather would add an extra day to our Katahdin expedition. In a race against the clock, we decided to forgo the traditional dip in Togue Pond, a refreshing way to shed the first layer of sweat and prepare for the trip home.

We did, however, stop at the Trading Post Gift Shop beside Big Moose Inn. On Bill’s recommendation, Julie bought a whoopie pie, a traditional Maine staple that contributes significantly to the state’s obesity rates: two soft chocolate cake-like cookies with a thick filling of marshmallow or cream. I bought the “lousy moose” refrigerator magnet as a consolation prize for Julie. It was a foregone conclusion that I’d be asleep for most of the trip back to Holbrook, and Julie delivered us safely to the camp in time for the lobster dinner.

As we devoured our lobsters, we recounted our adventures of the two days. It had been one for the record books. We’d pushed our physical limits in the exquisite wilderness of Baxter State Park. On the second day I'd hiked nine miles, Julie, closer to 14. And she got to experience the mountain I'd climbed countless times since my teenage years. The glow on our faces wasn’t just sunburn.

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