I Enter the Wild - Baxter State Park, Maine

Kidney Pond and Mt. Katahdin at Sunrise

It is impossible for human intelligence to comprehend God, yet certain places may allow people to experience the necessary risk that opens them, body and soul, to what their minds cannot entertain. God’s places, in scripture and in the history of spirituality, are frequently fierce landscape settings like the storm-beaten slopes of Mount Sinai. God is ‘an inaccessible and pathless mountain,’ as Philo described the peak Moses ascended in fear and trembling. Such liminal places are able, symbolically if not physically, to put people on edge, driving them beyond all efforts to control reality (and even God) by means of the intellect.   Belden Lane, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes

I smile a goofy smile as I travel up I-95 from Bangor, take the exit for Millinocket, travel through the villages of Medford, East Millinocket then Millinocket, and head to Baxter State Park on the unnamed road . . . Really, it is variously known as Baxter State Park Road, Lake Road, or Millinocket Lake Road. It turns into a gravel road before reaching its terminus at Baxter State Park. There is moderate color change on the leaves up I-95, reaching peak change by the time I am close to Baxter. I pass signs "warning" of deer crossing and moose crossing - oh, I so hope they do! It is about 55 degrees outside. I am heading to the wilderness in October. My smile widens!

Baxter State Park Road

I first discovered Baxter State Park in 2007, when I visited Maine to attend a grant writing workshop. Though I toured Acadia National Park at that time, I quickly tired of the copious cars and multiple numbers of people at Acadia and decided that I needed to locate a less populated, wilder area of the state. I had no idea what Baxter was, but on the maps of Maine it appears as a large green rectangular area in the middle of, well - nothing - in north central Maine. According to the maps, except for the two roads leading directly into Baxter, there aren’t even any paved roads in the surrounding countryside. Perfect! I was captivated by my one-day visit to Baxter in 2007 and have made several return trips, including a five-night stay with Gwen in a cabin at Kidney Pond in October, 2009. This is my first visit during which I will be camping alone in the Park.

Baxter State Park is a wilderness area consisting of more than 200,000 acres of public forest land and designated wilderness in Maine. Baxter is the home of Mount Katahdin, the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail and the highest peak in Maine. Approximately 75% of the Park is a wildlife sanctuary. A northwest section of the Park is operated as a Scientific Forest Management Area. Like John D. Rockefeller to the Grand Tetons, we owe the existence of Baxter State Park to one man, Percival Baxter, who was the Governor of Maine in the early 1920's. Baxter personally purchased the initial 6,000 acres - including Mt. Katahdin - and donated it to the State in 1931, with the stipulation that it forever remain a wilderness area. Baxter continued to purchase tracts of land to add to the size of the Park over the next thirty years. When he died he left a trust of $7 million to ensure that the Park would be managed financially over the years without the need to dip into State general revenue dollars. You go Percy! There are now over 40 peaks and ridges in the Park in addition to Mt. Katahdin. There are 215 miles of trails as well as 8 "roadside" and 2 backcountry campgrounds.

Baxter is located about 81 miles north of Bangor. The closest town to Baxter is Millinocket, population around 5,000. The local mill, Kathahdin Paper, and tourism from the Appalachian Trail and Baxter are the prime economic forces for the community. Baxter is located about 16 miles west of Millinocket.. To give some perspective on size of the community, on the Park website, when they provide directions to Baxter they state, "Proceed through both traffic lights in Millinocket. . ."

Except for a couple of side roads to the campgrounds, there is only one road in Baxter, the Nesowadnehunk Tote Road. The Tote Road is a two-lane gravel road that enters Baxter at the southeast corner at the Togue Ponds. It splits here with the right fork traveling north 8 miles to the Roaring Brook campground. The left fork travels west then north and back east to exit 43 miles later at the northeast entrance, Matagamon Gate. The speed limit on the Tote Road is 20 mph. There are spots where the road is narrow enough that one has to pull off to the side to allow oncoming cars to pass.

Cabin 10 Kidney Pond



Cabin 10 - Back View

I have reserved a cabin at the Kidney Pond Campground. Though it is only 12 miles from the Togue Gatehouse to Kidney Pond, it takes about an hour of driving to reach the campground because of the speed limit. The main buildings at Kidney Pond were originally a hunting camp that the State purchased and added to the Park. The campground consists of twelve cabins, the Ranger’s office and dwelling, two additional staff cabins, a library, and a wood barn. Oh, and I mustn’t forget the 4 outhouses! Except for cabin 12 across the pond which can only be reached by canoe, the cabins are arrayed along the edge of Kidney Pond. By the time I reach Kidney, my smile is really wide, made wider when I am greeted by Ranger Diane, whom Gwen and I met last year. Diane lives at the campground 5 days a week from around April through October, returning to her own home several hours away two days each week. She has worked at Baxter for about twenty years, so she is knowledgeable about all things Baxter. Indeed, she is a source authority on naturalist issues, i.e., trees, animals, and so on. And she is a really nice person.

My cabin, cabin 10, is fairly secluded, tucked up under red maple, white birch, and hemlock trees almost at the end of the path to the right. Today I note that the ground around the cabin and the back porch are festooned with red maple leaves! Mine is a one-room cabin furnished with two beds, a table, a small three-drawer dresser, a stool, two wooden chairs, a woodbox, and a woodstove. Did I mention that there is no electricity in the campground?! The cabin is heated by the woodstove. It is lighted by a propane lamp affixed to the wall. There is a back porch complete with work table and two adirondack chairs. Between the porch and the pond, which is only about fifteen feet, there is a picnic table. And from the back porch I have a gorgeous view of the lake and Mt. Katahdin.

I carry my food, gear, and so on to my cabin and unpack. I shopped for food in Bangor last night and in Millinocket on my way through today, planning meals that are fairly healthy and easy to prepare, e.g., tuna, beans, oatmeal, soup, and so on. I even purchased brown eggs, in keeping with the natural "theme" of the week. As always during a wild adventure, I have included cheese, crackers and merlot on the menu. And, of course, chocolate! I fill my woodbox with wood from the barn, put sheets, blanket, and sleeping bag on the bed, array the mini-carnations in plastic cups around the room. It is now early evening and a bit chilly, so I start a fire in the woodstove. Then I prop my feet up, pull out a novel, and settle in for a very pleasant evening. I have arrived. I am here.

The wilderness is a place of rest -- not in the sense of being motionless, for the lure, after all, is to move, to round the next bend. The rest comes in the isolation from distractions, in the slowing of the daily centrifugal forces that keep us off balance.   ---David Douglas (Scottish botanist)

Kidney Pond Loop Trail

Day Two

I need to "be out in it," my first full day here, even though "it" is being rained on. The rain is light, so I decide to hike the trail around Kidney Pond, my pond. You know, I think of ponds as smaller than lakes, wee bodies of water, but up here there are Big ponds everywhere, mine being no exception. The trail around Kidney Pond is 3.5 miles, a nice length, I think, for a first day's rainy saunter. I bundle in boots, jeans, long-sleeved t, and rain jacket and set out. 

Kidney Pond Loop Trail



Kidney Pond Loop Trail

The first half of the trip is a wonderful quiet walk in the rain. Sometimes it is a steady but light drizzle, sometimes just a drip. I wander down paths carpeted in needles from white pine; across big granite boulders; over and around gnarly roots. I travel down paths strewn with red, yellow, and orange leaves - from white birch, red maple, mountain maple and sugar maple. Sometimes my way appears as a kaleidoscope of color and shape! 



Kidney Pond Loop Trail

I am in no hurry.  I stop to examine mushrooms and fallen limbs.  I hike through stands of balsam, then eastern hemlock.  Sometimes I balance on little log walkways - like a gymnast on a balance beam. All the while I am delighting in the gifts of the wild, not thinking of much of anything except what is before me.  I take several "side trips" from the trail, to canoe landings on the pond, first Celia Landing, where a side trail leads to Celia Pond, then Sentinel Landing, from which spot one can hike to Sentinel Mountain, then Daicy Landing, where the side trail leads to Daicy Pond.

Kidney Pond Loop Trail

Now the rain picks up, and becomes real, well, persistent and insistent. Soon my jeans drip and my feet slosh in my boots.  I can no longer use my camera as the rain is too intense.  I pick up my pace.  I spend less time observing my surroundings, more time focused on moving swiftly through the trees . . . until I see that I am now hiking next to a moving body of water.  I’m not sure what is the name of the water, but I know it to be the stream or creek that "drains" Kidney Pond.  It is about 10 - 20 feet wide in places. Today it is swollen from the rain and is running fairly fast. 

I become concerned when I realize that my trail has ended - at the edge of the water!  I realize that there is a river ford on this trail . . .! two actually . . . I don't think they're normally a problem, probably just a mild rock hop, but given the recent rain, uh oh . . ., I may be in trouble.  The first ford isn't too bad, just a precarious perch on the bank with a very wide step and a hop involved.   Yes!  I make it! But the next has me thinking that I may be forced to retrace my steps the 2.5 soggy miles I've already come.  It is a raging "stream" about 15 feet across, worse still, looks about two feet deep, and swift!  It is not passable!! I'm not sure what to do.

From Kidney Pond Loop Trail

We need to witness our own limits transgressed. ---Thoreau

I am beginning to despair but decide to wander a bit further upstream, where I find a spot where debris has built up across the creek. It is only about 5 feet across and maybe 4-6 inches deep - if the debris holds up - otherwise . . . I decide to brave it.  I cross my fingers, hold onto branches as long as I can, pray that my feet won't be swept out from under me, and step forward.  And I make it!  I successfully cross the river!  And though I am quite wet by now, I think I dance the rest of the way home.

Whereupon I have the most wonderful cup of really hot coffee - made with my new Jetboil - to celebrate the wonder of where I am as well as my accomplishments . . . and to help me get warm!

It is only 1:30, but the rain intensifies, and I know I am in for the day.  I think back over my first day.  I have spent less than twenty-four hours in Baxter.  I think about how the focus here, in the wild, is on what is now, what is around the next bend.  Out here I am only concerned about balancing on log walkways, climbing over rocks, fording swift streams.  I don't worry about tomorrow.  Tomorrow will have a different set of obstacles on a totally different path   Today has been a good day.  I am satisfied.  I settle in.

In stretching the self to its edges, the geography helps in forcing a breakthrough to something beyond all previously conceived limits of being.     ---Belden Lane The Solace of Fierce Landscapes

　

Doubletop Mountain and Kidney Pond
from Kidney Pond Loop Trail