Southbound on the AT, Part 1: Katahdin & Baxter State Park

 On August 4th I married the light of my life, Elijah, and the next day we hit the road in a rental car. We were headed to Maine—we dropped our rental car off in Bangor, and then took a bus to Medway. From Medway, we got a shuttle to the AT Hostel & Outfitters in Millinocket, Maine, where we would spend the night before we heading to Baxter State Park the next morning.

August 8th was our Katahdin summit day, and the beginning of our long walk to Georgia on the Appalachian Trail. It’s now the end of week 7 of our journey, and we’ve been holed up in Rutland, Vermont for a few days as I recover from a sinus infection. I thought I’d take some of this downtime to reflect on the past two months so far. 

Once we got dropped off at Katahdin Stream Campground, Elijah and I each selected a loaner daypack to use for the scrambly hike up to the northern terminus. The ranger building near the trailhead had a pile of different styles and colors of packs to choose from. I picked a blue pack and Elijah chose a spunky orange Hawaiian printed jansport. We left our hulking backpacks at the designated lean-to, strung up our food at the bear hang, and began our hike on the Hunt Trail, the official route of the AT up Katahdin.

A waterfall along the Hunt Trail, near the beginning of the hike.

The northern terminus!!!!

Elijah with super epic loaner daypack. The ranger stations @ Baxter have a ton of packs to borrow so you don’t have to lug your whole pack up the mountain.

The way to the top of Katahdin was a long, drawn out uphill, with plenty of lowkey bouldering involved. It was a sunny day and once we cleared treeline we got expansive views of the surrounding woods—peaks interspersed with backcountry lakes. We passed so many northbounders on their final day of their journeys. As we clambered up, beneath a blue sky, it was inspiring to come across thru-hikers making their way back down the hunt trail, ecstatic or just content after ending their 2,200-mile long treks.

The alpine vegetation reminded me of what I’d recently seen in Alaska, on my last backpacking trip before this thru-hike attempt. I love the plants of high-altitude, rocky provenance, plants that have evolved to thrive under the reign of sun, wind, and snow. The trail leveled out at the “tablelands” then began its last climb up to the peak.

Up at the top, we took in the scenery: a cataclysm of boulders, strewn upon the mountainsides. I saw the silhouettes of distant hikers attempting “the knife’s edge,” a precarious trail that also terminates at the peak. Hawks of some sort swooped overhead, a pond down in the valley below glittered in the afternoon sun.

We stayed a while, savoring the start of a long walk ahead of us. Then we headed back down to the tablelands, where we chose to take the Abol Trail to make a loop out of the day. It was shorter in distance, but much steeper in tread. It took a lot of patience to manage our footing on the rocky trail—loose pebbles and dust made the path slippery. Perhaps returning on the hunt trail would have been a better idea. But we popped out at Abol Campground, where we loaded up on water—the descent took so long that we’d run out a couple hours beforehand.

Abol campground was 2 miles down the gravel road from where our campsite at Katahdin Stream was. We set off, hoping to catch a ride with someone headed that way. A red sedan passed me with my thumb stuck out. Noticing the Quebec plate, I wondered aloud to Elijah if hitchhiking just wasn’t a part of Canadian culture. A minute later, the car came back around, and the driver asked if we wanted a ride! He apologized for driving past us, explaining that it took a bit for him to realize what we were doing. Thus went the first hitch of the thru-hike, from three Montreal friends: two Bens & a Michael, who’d come to Baxter to climb. The driver (I forget if he was a Ben or a Michael) actually wore a Miguel’s T-shirt, and we got to gush about how much the Red River Gorge meant to us Kentuckians.

It turns out the Canadians were staying at Katahdin Stream Campground too. We disembarked from their sedan, and when we said good-night, dusk had already settled in the mountains. I hadn’t expected Day 1 to have dragged on for so long. We strung up our hammocks & ate a pasta dinner. As I gathered water I spotted a fat toad by the stream. And the moon, full or damn well near, was out & sending its light down into the backwoods of Maine.

The next day we planned to hike out of Baxter State Park, over Abol Bridge, and get a few miles into the Hundred Mile Wilderness.

Cascades on day two, headed south& out of the park.

A view of Katahdin from Abol Bridge!

Toad by Hurd Brook Shelter

As we were leaving the campground, we found Cory, the kind ranger that helped register us before we started up the Hunt Trail. He asked us to be on the lookout for smoke from a potential wildfire that someone had called in. Anything for you, Cory.

No smoke was spotted, and after winding past Baxter’s many ponds and waterfalls, the trail followed alongside the Penobscot River all the way out to the border of Baxter SP. Near the park’s edge is a campground store at Abol Bridge. There we got ice cream & tried a whoopie pie, which seems to be a signature baked good of the state of Maine. 

At the campground store, a Baxter SP ranger came around and doled out information to the various northbounders clumped at the picnic tables and in the shade. He walked over to me & Elijah and we explained that we were heading south. So he asked us if we had any questions about the hundred mile wilderness. I replied yeah, but at this point I think it’s between me and God. 

Elijah and I crossed the bridge over the Penobscot River and got a good look at Katahdin, 15 miles away. We turned away, and headed back into the woods. It sprinkled a tad on our few miles to get to Hurd Brook. We found a cadre of Boy Scouts set up around the shelter, so we crossed the brook and found ourselves a little patch of tamped earth to call home for our first night in the hundred mile wilderness.

More on that lovely little section later!

-Dan

Benton MacKaye Trail, Part 2

Weeks pass, snow and ice on the mountain side melt and feed into springs and seeps and mudmires. On the 1st of February, our crew got to work at Heggie’s Rock, a nature conservancy site in Columbia county, Georgia. The rock was nothing like I’d ever seen—a patchwork of lichens and mosses and stonecrop-like plants interspersed with serene pools and islands of shrubby cedar. A quilt of life borne right from bare granite. Frogs called all afternoon in the southern sun, unbothered by the noise of our saws.

This past weekend, we were slated to work @ Piedmont National Wildlife Refuge, but the burn was cancelled 2 hours into our drive south. So when got back to the crew house I took all my food and water out of my fire pack and shoved it into my six moon designs backpack. Loaded up into my CRV and headed west, back in the direction of Springer Mountain. 

I parked this time right off GA 60; there’s a small parking pull-off where the BMT crosses the road. The plan for this trip: walk south from this trailhead to meet back up with where I camped on my last section of the BMT, then double back. 

The first leg of my trip was a drawn-out push up Tooni Mountain. Though it rained throughout the morning, by the time I set out on foot, the sun revealed itself and remained bright among scattered clouds. Running along the ridgetop, then an equally drawn-out descent to Toccoa River. Gaggles of day hikers gathered by the swinging bridge over shining water. A fisherwoman, a triumphant band of friends. 

The late afternoon light reflected off the river onto evergreen rhododendron leaves—a dance by the water. After a pause by the river to finish off my bagel lunch, another brutal climb up to the John Dick Mountains. Once I made a turn to get on the West side of Little John Dick, I got a broad view of a wide streak of yellow evening light fighting to make it beyond the clasp of cloudcover. But the sun fell behind the mountains before its rays could break free. 

Rhododendron hallways, crow’s foot holding up its clubs of spores. Squirrel rustle, the light of a not-quite full moon. That night I made it to Bryson Gap. There was a stream nearby that I suspect would be dry come high summer.  

The wind rushing through the gap like a whistle to a howl. My rainfly flapped with abandon with every gust. Mountain-forecast reported 35 mph gusts possible overnight, and I scrutinized my camp spot for widowmakers before I strung up my hammock. 

The next morning, dense fog ensnared the mountains; their ridges and gaps. I set out continuing south, stashing my gear at camp, in order to meet back up with the end of my previous section hike. Slowly, then all at once, the mist dissipated—the surrounding ranges came back into view. Walking back north to Bryson Gap, I felt the landscape was revealed to me like a gift. I woke up and the mountain was dressed in fog and two hours later i walked the trail among sunbeams glowing brightly.

I made my way back to the river. The water was turquoise, teal, and glittering white on the other side of the bridge where it runs through riffles.

Armadillo spotted at a pit stop @ Winfield Scott Lake on the drive back home to Cleveland, GA.

Wrapping & winding along a ridge. I cherish this naked season where the hills are clear & open to interpretation. As I headed back down Tooni Mountain to return to my car, I held the bands of mountains, blue and green, beyond the cove trees. 

I finished Fen, Bog, Swamp by Annie Proulx over this trip. A lovely novel in three acts that masterfully welds together history, advocacy, science, and personal anecdote.

Map of this weekend’s section

Benton MacKaye Trail, Pt 1

    A little over a month ago I graduated from UK, and a couple weeks ago I drove south to Georgia to work on a prescribed burn crew for the first third of this year. I took I-75 and pushed my pedal to the floor once I hit the climb out of the Kentucky River valley. Still a little heartbroken and dazed about leaving the job I’ve had for the past year, working as a stewardship tech at a nature sanctuary set up against that slow, faithful river. Feels like I still had a lifetime to learn from those 347 acres. 

Floracliff in the January snow

    Now I live in a town of three thousand people, 20 minutes away from Yonah Mountain, where I go run after work among scampering squirrels and trees with their buds dormant and cloaked in winter scales. A week after snow I ran to the bare side of the mountain top, where precipitation running off the peak was still frozen in the impression of a waterfall. Plodding back down bathed in red rays, red suneye between the hickory branches.

Yonah Mtn @ Sunset

    This past weekend I set out on my first backpacking trip of the year. Saturday morning, I drove up graveled Forest Service Road 42 near Blue Ridge, Georgia, up to the trailhead for the southern terminus of the Benton MacKaye trail. Starting on the side of springer mountain, I first took the Appalachian Trail to its first meeting with the BMT. Here the two trails diverge. They criss-cross one another a couple times walking north from Springer, with the AT ultimately heading east and the BMT heading north to Tennessee.

    A little less than a mile into the hike, a short spur offers a vista of the simplicity of southern woods in winter. 

Owen Vista

    I got to Three Forks sometime after lunch. Intermittent stretches of ice and snow remaining from a week-old snow event demanded careful footwork, especially in this section. This hallway past ice-fringed cascades is a busy day hike destination, but there’s a big broad campsite by the creek that would be nice for a short overnight. At each waterfall, rhododendron nodded into the spray, & boulders offered sittin spots to sore hikers.

    After long creek falls, the BMT and AT diverge again; they cross once more on the southern border of the Great Smoky Mountains national park. I followed the Benton MacKaye up past a grassy bald and two discarded ammo belts. That night I made camp up on the ridge after No Name Gap. Serene gold light beamed through the trunks and branches while I made dinner.

    That night I dreamt that a wild hog was accosting my hammock, and I came to wildly thrashing in my cocoon. I promptly fell back asleep. Winter backpacking means no insects, fewer people, and better views through leafless trees, but also laying in your sleeping bag for at least 12 hours each night. Between Saturday night and my extendo lunch break on Sunday, I finished a re-read of Remains of the Day. 

“No Name Gap”

    Sunday I watched the sunrise through my hammock bugnet, reluctant to emerge from the warmth of the sack. Eventually I got up, ignored my numb toes, packed up to the sounds of dawn shots firing somewhere in the vicinity (the BMT runs through Blue Ridge Wildlife Management Area), and began retracing my steps from Saturday. I spent a long while in the valley of three forks when I got back to the waterfalls before doubling back to springer mountain. Located some dusky salamanders in a seep near one of the falls. The weather turned to overcast, and heavy gusts blew over the chattahoochee national forest. The world seemed close to rain. But nothing came of it, not even on my drive home.

     Until next time, Springer Mtn. 

    

Louisiana, January 2023

Journal entries from 2 yrs ago

Jan 2

Well. Let me try to get it all down.

New years’ eve/drawn to the Kentucky River/cross the bridge/on to Mercer County/turn into Shaker Village. The falls were dry, the moon was slightly less than full. I just keep coming back to this Clift path where a valley splits and spills into the river. Turning around to follow it back up to the cows, like a seam coming back together. 

Jake @ the Great Lakes

Jan 8

I remember the sunset in northern ohio, where a day of gloom broke into a fiery sunset, splaying gold all over the land, forcing drivers to squint and raise their hands to the zealous rays. Jake pointed out the interstate-side beeches which hold on to their leaves–I see them still here, as we blast through Alabama. It started raining and the fog is hanging over these southern woods.

Jan 9 

Woke early this morning, 6:30, to catch my first louisiana dawn. I broke into a half-assed run along a pebbly ochre road, where i spotted a white tailed deer which leapt in an arc as it crossed the road. I stopped by a shreddy redcedar, picked off a prickly needle, inhaled that minty astringency.

Sunshine streams out the blue sky–just before 9 o clock, i hear the cry triumphant of fowl off in the woods.

Knot in the plank, lovers we thank/The sweetheart i’ll build my future with/Time passes to reveal the batholith/Grackle on the windowsill of the house across the alley/Songs of wind and driving rain tonight tear through the valley

Dark out now, outside the peepers sing their frantic steady song. I sat outside before dinner for an hour, reading, drawing til the fiery crown fell from the pine canopy and the eye of the sun disappeared beyond the swampy pond. After dinner I went back out and saw the stars up in the Louisiana sky. Stumped by the mystery of these pines.

Jake’s stubbly face in the dim light of the parking lot behind his columbus apartment. Some things will never be the same once a phase of time passes. The realization is at once sad, enlightening, and relieving.

Gorges SP, later that month

I ran back home after louisiana. But I checked out the foothills trail along the road home.