August 10, 2015 Home to Wilderness Edge Campground in Millinocket
Up early and packed for the hike. Left mid afternoon to make it to Millinocket
at 6PM. We bought Subway and sat in the McDonald’s parking lot to use Wi-Fi. We
stayed in tent site 49 for $10 at Wilderness Edge Campground because it was
close to the bath house but not too close. We took our showers and got a flint
and steel campfire started. We checked the gear and were ready for bed at 8:15.
August 11, 2015 Wilderness Edge Campground to Russell Pond Shelters
We packed and checked our gear and put packs in the car. After a
quick shower, we headed to McDonalds for a quick breakfast and a trip to
Hannaford for last minute essentials: trash bags and bug spray. We headed to
the gate at Baxter State Park and made a rest stop at the Rum Brook Campsite on
the way in. We parked at Roaring Brook and hit the trail at 8:50AM. The Russell
Brook Trail was fairly flat. We were able to use the rocks at the first river crossing
and soon stopped for a quick exploration under a giant overhanging rock. At the
second river crossing, we were able to go upstream a little and cross on rocks
but still managed to get our feet a little wet. Just as 7 miles started to feel
like a long way, we arrived at Russell Brook campsite at 12 noon. The ranger
was out so we couldn’t check in. We ate PBJ bagels with banana and took a 90-minute
nap in our lean to. Sometime during the nap, it had started to rain.
We filtered and UV treated the water from the pond, sorted out our
food items, and played half a game of cribbage. We met the folks in the shelter
next to us from Springfield, MA. We made chicken tacos (in soft burrito wraps)
for dinner and then did the dishes. We took advantage of a bear pole and hung up
our food items for the night in a trash bag. We finished the game of cribbage
and brushed our teeth. My youngest son who had been fiddling with his cell
phone, somehow managed to get a couple text messages out to his girlfriend.
August 12, 2015 Russell Pond Shelters to Davis Pond Shelter
Up at 6AM and my oldest used the stove to boil hot water for instant
oatmeal. We went to purify water and the UV treatment has already stopped
working giving us a red blinking light. It is a good thing we have the filter
and enough fuel to boil our water. I will return the UV Treatment to LL Bean and
wait for a better design. We packed up and hit the trail.
Once we crossed Annis Brook, we found a bunch of cool iron relics
from the past when this part of the world was a town before time moved on. Now
we were in the wilderness and would likely not see anyone all day. We were
walking up what seemed to be an old road or railroad bed. There were lots of
fir trees and a gentle grade until we came to a river crossing.
We took our time and tried to pile rocks before giving up and
taking off our boots. My oldest shuttled all the packs across the river jumping
rock to rock while my youngest and I picked our way through the rushing river.
We left the river at 10:15 and headed up a much steeper grade. The
boys kept fantasizing about riding the natural water slides. As we came into
views of Lake Cowles, mother nature was urgently calling my youngest and he
literally was running for the shelter and the outhouse. I went to get water for
lunch and slipped, completely soaking my right boot. I set my boot out to dry
while my oldest boiled water for rice. My oldest and I ate rice and cheese
tacos for lunch. My youngest ate another PBJ and banana bagel. We napped at 1PM
only to have my youngest wake us up at 1:45. We played cards until my oldest
won 4 hands of Crazy 8s in a row. A lot of our gear was damp, so we hang it up
around the shelter. We went exploring and I made it to the top of the hill in
the middle of the lake under the cliff walls. What an amazing place.
We sorted through our food and saved 5 power bars, 6 breakfast
bars, a bag of bacon noodles, plus a breakfast and a lunch bag. We decided to
feast on the rest and cooked and ate the remaining 3 bags of cheesy noodles
with broccoli, 1 can of chicken, 1 tomato, and a bag of cheesy noodles with
bacon. We even followed that up by splitting
a power bar for dessert. We had to take turns eating since I only brought one
pot and no plates.
First, the bag of cheesy noodles with bacon went to my youngest.
Second, my oldest ate the first bag of cheesy noodles with broccoli. Third, it
was my turn to eat a bag of cheesy noodles with broccoli. It was so good, my oldest
had a second bag of cheesy noodles with broccoli. The chicken and tomato went into
leftover burrito wraps to eat with our noodles. We ate very well. We cleaned up
and then went up to explore the hill in the middle of the lake. The boys fiddled
with their cell phone and thought they got a text message out. The weather is
still unsettled, and we watched the clouds as they moved quickly across the
sky. Back at camp we got another bottle of water sterilized. The UV Pen works intermittently,
and we get a bottle sterilized every hour or so. I boiled a pot of water so we
could pour it into our bottles in the morning. We put up a bear bag for the
food, more to keep the mice away than the bears. We tucked ourselves in about
8:30. Unfortunately there were too many clouds to see the meteor shower.
Besides, we had a long day planned the next day.
August 13, 2015 Davis Pond Shelter to Baxter Peak to Knife Edge
We were up at 5AM to a red squirrel who we called Genghis Khan because
he was so full of rage and anger. We refilled the water bottles from the boiled
pot and got ready for breakfast. My oldest managed to treat another bottle of water
with the UV pen before it failed again. I ate oatmeal first, then my oldest,
then my youngest. We washed down our oatmeal plus additional raisins with
coffee and cocoa. We packed our gear, put away the ladder and shovel, swept the
shelter and the outhouse, and picked up other people’s trash. We were ready to
go by 7:20.
Immediately the trail was almost vertical to the tablelands. The
fog and clouds came and went teasing us with fantastic views. We pushed on to
caribou springs and then on to the saddle. There we net a group from camp Keoka
from Keene NH. They were heading to
Russell Pond after having stayed at Chimney Pond the previous night.
We pushed on to the summit and made it to the top about 10:30.
There were 20 people there all celebrating completion of the AT. Someone in the
group was smoking so we left as soon as possible and headed across the knife
edge. After complete isolation the day before, we were shocked at how many
people we met. We met a high school girl on the knife edge from Lincoln, ME who
was hiking solo on the knife edge in the opposite direction. Once up to Pamola
Peak we decided to go down Dudley and worked our way down slowly. We found some
rocks to scramble up and got some great pictures. It was after 1 when we
finally arrived exhausted at Chimney Pond. It started to sprinkle and we jumped
into vacant shelter 4 to eat our lunch. We got going again at 1:15.
We got faster as the trail got better. The girl from the knife edge
who was from Lincoln, ME caught up to us and the boys chatted away with her as
we went even faster down the trail to Roaring Brook parking lot. We made it out
about 2:40 and headed to McDonalds for WIFI and a snack. We fueled up and made
it home by 7PM. This was a fantastic trip.
In Review, Things that Worked Well:
Slowing down to a Leisure Itinerary
Cribbage and Cards
Including Plastic Knives in the lunch bags
Reading Trail Descriptions to the Kids the night before
LOTS of Clif Bars
Lots of water
Extra fuel canisters
Extra Noodles
Fresh Bananas and
Cheese
Using my hat for a cozy for the hot cookpot/coffee cup
Wrapping headlamp around thermarest pad
What didn’t work well:
Not easy to share one pot
Need Ropes on Pack tarp
Need metal not plastic sporks
Need metal coffee cup with insulation
Steripen was not reliable
Forgot sour cream
We carried a large can of bug spray and only used it once
We needed a cutting board
The cribbage board is heavy
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