Maine 2020

So my friend Miguel and I decided we needed to get out of town for an adventure …

… and decided to head up to Baxter State Park in Maine. It was February, so we got geared up for a cold and snowy experience.

We didn’t have a lot of time, so we decided to get as close to Baxter as we reasonably could by Friday night, and then spend as much of the weekend as possible out in the wilderness. We stopped in Portland and sampled some breweries – Sebago Brewing Company and Oxbow (where I’ve wanted to visit for a long time to get some saison and french fries!). Then we were on to Bangor, where we stopped at Mason’s Brewing Company. On the way back, we continued our brewery tour, stopping in Augusta at Cushnoc Brewing Co. – which was my favorite.

The next morning we got up to snowmobile country. All of the roads in Baxter are closed in the winter, so we had to park outside the park boundary and hike in. We parked at Abol Bridge and set out, leaving behind any trace of cell reception. Hoisting up our fully-loaded packs (maybe 35+ pounds?) was pretty rough, but once we got going it wasn’t bad.

We were heading to Kidney Pond, where we had reserved a cabin, which was supposed to be 7.6 miles away. It was cold, but a good hiking temperature – maybe got into the low 30s – and overcast. It even snowed a little – enough to add some cool winter atmosphere.

We brought snowshoes, and while the snow to the sides of the trails was as much as a few feet deep, the trails were fairly packed due to snowmobiles or cross country skiers dragging sleds behind them, so we didn’t really need them.

We crossed three ponds on the way to the cabin – Foss & Knowlton Pond, Lost Pond, and Daicey Pond.

The wooded landscapes changed quite a bit through the hike.

When we reached the far side of Daicey Pond, there was supposed to be only 1.6 miles left to get to Kidney Pond. But when we reached the trail connecting the two lakes, we found no way to cross the river, as the ice was not strong enough to support our weight and the freezing water did not provide an appealing option for fording. We ended up following the summer roads all the way around to where there was a crossing, doubling the remaining distance when we were already pretty exhausted. (Red line instead of green line).

We eventually made it! It was a relief to have a wood stove that could keep us warm overnight, as it got down into the teens (and nice that Miguel got up like 10 times throughout the night to add wood). We were also glad to have a water filter to filter out all the forest debris from the snow we melted to refill our water bottles.