Maine's Katahdin is a nice 5000+ft mountain which is relatively isolated with over 4 000ft prominence. Katahdin also marks the northern end of the Appalachian trail. I chose to hike up the Abol slide trail, although there are many different options for reaching the peak which is Baxter peak, including among them hiking on knife's edge which I avoided in a decision that would prove to be quite lucky.
The trial started with some minor nuisances of mosquitoes and mild rain, which lasted the first hour or two of hiking after starting around 730 in the morning. The rist mile or so is fairly slow inclination change in forest along small streams, actually the trail itself was a minor stream in sections.
Once the trail turns upwards there is a rockslide to follow for about 3000 elevation ft in not much more than a mile. The slide have a mix of gravel and larger rocks, which is quite straightforward to hike and scramble on and which doesn't move too much even in the wed slippery conditions.
Parts of the trail involve some semi-tricky class 2 scrambling, had it been dry it would probably have been mostly pleasant, but the wet made for a challenge especially on the way down later... As the elevation increased the clouds started sweeping in around the trail and the top of the mountain, but for a while there was some very nice views of the surrounding lakes and nature.
Once you reach the top of the slide the trickiest part is over, but a completely other set of challenges might present themselves, inmy case it was a very very reduced view as can be seen in the pictures below. That in combination with extremely heavy wind gusts on hte edge of the tabletop on the mountain.
The Abol trail intersected with the appalachian tral and that leads to the Baxter peak in about 1 mile distance but with a very mild inclination of only a couple of hundred feet in tundralike nature.
After about 3 hours of hiking I reached the top which is marked with a sign, and a plaque. On the sign one can see the quite intimidating distance marked as over 2000 miles to the southern terminus of the Appalachian trail. After a couple of oreos and other snacks I was about ready to head down and leave the clouds...
First a look at one of the other trails leaving up to the top, the infamous knifes edge. In the wet conditions with very strong temporary gusts I would not be surprised to see that trail being closed for the day for safety reasons.
Stats:
State: Maine
High point: Katahdin
Elevation 5268 ft (1 605.7 m)
Date: June 24th, 2012
Total elevation to date: 208 236 ft (63 470 m)
Access: hike
Difficulty rating (of 10): 6
Potential Difficulties: slippery, high winds, mosquitoes
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