Number reaching Katahdin after it closes

imported
#1

Do many thru hikers reach Baxter after bigK closes around Oct. 15?

StatisticsHound

#2

This is an unscientific answer, but in 2002, I summited 10/13. I had buddies holding back for the 15th on purpose, who made it. But there were others that I knew of that came in behind them, I would say I know of 6 thru-hikers that year that walked into BSP after 10/15. Some were not able to go up the mountain, but came back this Sept and finished their hikes. Ironically, I was in touch with two different sets of folks coming back the same week (from where they live in TN) to accomplish this. They ended up on Katahdin the SAME day, and passed each other surprised, not knowing the other(s) were going to be there. Just another serendipitous Trail moment.

Bluebearee

#3

Bluebearee, since you live up there in Maine, do you summit Katahdin often? I think if I lived up there I would especially when the thru hikers are arriving.

There are hikes down here in Virginia that I hike over and over again cause I like them so much. It’d be cool to be able to hike up Katahdin every month or so.

See you out there. :cheers

Maintain

#4

hey Maintain and Bluebearee, i invite ya both to find me out there. I have loved yer forum posts and would love to meetcha when i am in yer neck of the woods. Maintain, do you have a journal here? i looked but if it is there i missed it.

Burn

#5

I don’t get to Baxter much at all Maintain. I’m four hours away, I wanted to go up on my anniversary date this year, but it’s too much for a day trip with the driving - it was Gathering weekend and I had a wedding that Sunday back here. Plus the logistical challenges of being able to stay in the park have kept me abay for years. People camp out New Years Eve and Day waiting for the first day the park takes reservations for the whole year. It’s a whole “thing” just to do that in Millinocket. They don’t take phone resies (although this may be changing after 2004), or credit cards. My friends have better luck getting space at the less popular areas, through the northern gate than around Roaring Brook and Chimney Pond. I tend to spend more time in the Whites and in the Western Mts. of Maine. But this year I hope to get to Baxter and do some more exploring of that wonderful tract of land. I find Katahdin to be a very difficult climb for someone like me with short legs and reaches, I don’t see me hiking that one any time soon again. I need two more peaks in the park to finish my New England 4K footers, so those are my short term goals.

Burn, I would love to come out and meet you, once people hit Crawford Notch to the middle of Maine, I’m 1.5 to 2 hours away from the Trail.

Bluebearee

#6

on that note, im lookin forward to meeting many of you 04ers/makin you fat, down south. Will be scanning Springer to Damascus for a week in mid-march. Look out for tha train!

A-Train

#7

Burn, thanks for ur comments on my posts. Appreciate it. No journal yet, but I’m thinking about it. A journal is a committment, and I don’t like to take on something that I’m not willing to devote a lot of time and effort to and see it thru. Just look at all the unfinished journals and just a few entry journals on trailjournals and you’ll see what I mean. If I do it, I want to do it right like Bluebearee did, a full complete journal with lots of entries, etc.

Hope all works out well with your thru hike and the wife. If your union is strong, it will survive this and many things to come. Good luck.

I live right on the trial in southwestern Virginia—Bland, Pearisburg, Pearis Mountain, Peter’s Mountain area. I am blessed in this. It seems many people, who love the trail so much, live so far away from it. For example Rocket03 lives in Texas. Hope to see you and many other thru hikers, which I will, when you and they come thru this area. I meet hundreds and hundreds of them each year. Believe I gave the A-Train a hitch, when he came thru this area with a lot of other NOBO’s.

Thanks to all. Merry Christmas and happy holidays.

See you out there. :cheers

Maintain