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DavidNH
05-05-2005, 21:24
I thought of a question recently..

suppose you are thru hiking north..get up to Baxter state park.. you get the night at the place for thru hikers (the birches they call it?) and the day you are going to summit Katahdin and celebrate victory..the weather is windy and rainy and bad visibility. What does the hiker do? Not a good day to go up the mountain. But you can't stay because all the camp sites are taken (I have read that reservations are taken months in advance!). Has any one here been in this situation?

David

weary
05-05-2005, 21:31
I thought of a question recently..

suppose you are thru hiking north..get up to Baxter state park.. you get the night at the place for thru hikers (the birches they call it?) and the day you are going to summit Katahdin and celebrate victory..the weather is windy and rainy and bad visibility. What does the hiker do? Not a good day to go up the mountain. But you can't stay because all the camp sites are taken (I have read that reservations are taken months in advance!). Has any one here been in this situation?David
I haven't. But the rangers tend to be very accomodating and they generally will figure something out. If the weather is bad, people tend to leave the campground, opening up vacancies.

IN general, mid week is no problem. Weekends are a dilemma, especially in August. Things lighten up on week days, once school starts.

Weary

TJ aka Teej
05-06-2005, 10:58
suppose you are thru hiking north..get up to Baxter state park.. you get the night at the place for thru hikers (the birches they call it?) and the day you are going to summit Katahdin and celebrate victory..the weather is windy and rainy and bad visibility. What does the hiker do?
Most hikers climb the Mountain, no matter what the weather. You can wait outside the Park for a better weather day, but you risk not getting one of the 12 first-sign-up first-served spots at the Birches. But don't worry too much, to the best of my knowledge no thru-hiker has ever been turned away since the AT site was moved a few miles North to Katahdin Stream Campground. The Rangers at KSC will try hard to find you a spot somewhere in the Park to stay, and I've even known other campers who have shared lean-to spaces. Your best bet is to figure the day you'll make Baxter when you're in Monson, and call the Park to see if you can get a reservation for a couple of nights. (There's a rather recent within 10 days/via phone/with credit card deal.)

Papa Bear
05-06-2005, 12:18
You can also stay at Abol Bridge. There is a state campground on the other side of the road from the store and when I went through there was no fee (in fact nobody was there at all to check you in). My (2003) Companion says it's $5, but it was free in 2004. You are also only about a 1/4 mile from the check in point for BSP, so just getting an early start will guarantee you a spot. Last year in mid September we were first and left Abol Bridge after 7:00 AM. If the weather looks real bad, stay there a day or two till it looks like a couple of clear days, then head for the Birches.

Also if you are fast, you could make the summit from Abol Bridge (an extra 10 miles). Ditch your pack at the ranger station at KS and head straight up (they'll loan you a day pack) and you can hitch out to Millinocket when you get back. It's certainly been done from Abol Bridge. Purists will of course keep their packs.

Pb

BTW: am I the only one annoyed by these stupid jumping emoticons while I'm trying to type a reply? Anyway to turn them off?

Footslogger
05-06-2005, 12:24
Some hikers hitch a ride into Millinocket and stay at a hotel, monitor the weather and then get a ride back out to Baxter when it clears ...

'Slogger
AT 2003

hiker5
05-06-2005, 12:43
BTW: am I the only one annoyed by these stupid jumping emoticons while I'm trying to type a reply? Anyway to turn them off?

Using MS Internet Explorer I can just hit the "Stop" button on my tool bar. All the moving icons stop moving. I imagine other browsers would behave similarly.

TJ aka Teej
05-06-2005, 12:55
You can also stay at Abol Bridge. There is a state campground on the other side of the road from the store and when I went through there was no fee (in fact nobody was there at all to check you in). My (2003) Companion says it's $5, but it was free in 2004.
It's called Abol Pines, and there is a fee. There's an information board set up with envelopes, with an 'iron ranger' (a padlocked steel tube set in concrete) just to the left for you to deposit your fee. It can get crowded late in the year as hikers pile up outside the Park and is suprisingly noisy with the logging trucks hitting the brakes as they come up to Abol Bridge.