Baxter State Park

I had been hoping to explore Baxter State Park for a long time. We had missed it on our last trip because it was so out of the way, and it sounded like a rather difficult, unwelcoming place (slow, dirt, one-way road,...). But the lure of "pure" wilderness and moose and bears - oh my! So I decided to make the trek. First, I researched hiking trails. Would've loved to do Mt. Katahdin, but after really looking at what it entailed, I realized there was no way! It's pretty killer, and I was totally out of shape! I think this is one that you'd better be in top form for! There are different routes up, of varying difficulty, but generally this is a climb, not a hike, with about 4000 feet of gain in ONLY 5 miles!!!! That is steep! That's a climb! And the trail? Mostly huge boulders by the sound of it! And the logistics - getting to the trailhead, getting there early enough, getting a parking spot (they limit the number of park visitors and hikers - and one of these methods is first come, first serve - if there's no parking by the time you get there, you're SOL!), getting a good enough weather day - all made it a no-go for me for this trip. It remains on my life list of to-dos and hopefully the stars will align better on another outing. But I found a hike that sounded do-able and so set off...

stopping along the way for pretty scenes, of course!

Ah, finally. I got very lost on my way to Baxter. First, I got turned around at a town that was totally stopped up because of some parade or event getting started. I outsmarted myself by trying to go around on little side streets and apparently missed my turn-off! I also lost about 1/2 hour in that mess. By the time I realized I must've missed, I was way north of where I wanted to be! After another wrong turn or two, and miles and hours, later, I finally did get on the right road. I had to ask someone going by if I was on the right road though - there really wasn't any indication! I had decided to go up to the northern entrance (Matagamon Gate), thinking I would go again on another day and do the southern entrance (Togue Pond Gate). The park's main through road is something like 50 miles end-to end, and about 20 mph the whole way on a very dirty dirt road. In the above photo, you can see a pretty version of the dust in the air left by my truck!

Baxter State Park is an interesting entity. It was set up by huge land and money donations from the apparently super wealthy 1921-24 governor of Maine, Percival Baxter. It's operated by certain designated ME government officials but not by the normal state park folks. Most of it (75%) is strictly controlled as a wildlife preserve, but 14% of it is "Scientific Forest Management Area" where they harvest timber, and 25% of it allows hunting and trapping (sans moose hunting). They try to keep it wild, uncivilized - there are no facilities in the park - no water, no electricity, no trash containers or pick-up, etc. They want the visitors to have a very peaceful, pristine, pure nature experience. So it was a real irony when I got out of my truck, at the trailhead, to the sound of a female ranger-type loudly ranting on and on to her cohort about some unpleasant work experience or project management dispute! Kind of screwed up my personal peaceful experience!

I made it to the top, the end of my little Trout Brook Farm hike - despite the heat, the delays due to getting lost, the noisy ranger,... It was an OK hike - not one of my favorites. And that, I'd have to say, was true for my whole Baxter experience - not one of my favorites. I still want to do Katahdin, and it'd be good to look for moose around some of the more notoriously moose-ridden ponds in the southern part of the park, but other than that, I wasn't hugely impressed. Maybe I will be more impressed next time. Or maybe next time will be the last time!

This might've been the South Branch Pond - I can't remember and almost don't care - is that bad? My Baxter day almost felt like a wasted day at the end of it, it was so frustrating to have wasted so much time getting lost and having no help in the way of signage or anything, to have been on such a narrow dirty road for so long and not really getting to see much of anything. I'm still undecided as to whether this park is really for visitors to have that "pure nature experience" or just to try and persuade people that they really don't want to come here...! Guess I'm just not hard core enough for this place.

At this South Branch Pond or whatever it is, they did have little huts where people could camp and get out of the weather (other than with their tent).

I was surprised to see an Amish gal, leading her mama and baby horses, down the road! Wow, these folks are everywhere in the eastern half of the country! And even in the harshest weather spots!

I was so pooped out and sort of disenchanted with my Baxter run that I decided against a return trip, so the south section will have to wait for another day...or another life!