Criss-crossing the Country

The weekend of 7/11 I went up to Maine for some hiking and possibly some white water rafting. We wanted to do the Knife's Edge hike on Mt. Katahdin which is the highest point in Maine and a very popular 10ish hour hike. So popular in fact that the parking for the trail head for Knife's Edge was full at 6:30 am.

As it turned out, we didn't make it by 6:30. We rolled into Baxter State Park at about 8am, signed in for the Abol/Hunt's trail hike, parked our car, and headed up the trail. This was supposed to be a 8-10 hour hike with the Abol hike being a very steep hike to the top of Katahdin and then the Hunt trail (the last leg of the AT) being easier in terms of navigating back down the mountain. We started up the Abol and they weren't kidding about steepness.

After what was a fairly ridiculous uphill and loose rock hike we hit a flat part.

And then kept climbing up to the top of Katahdin.

It was an awesome hike, and an amazing view. And holy crap was it tiring. We made it in about 4 hours, ate lunch and then headed back down the Hunt trail. It was very windy which made it kind of exciting on the way down. The views, however, were absolutely worth it.

We continued the rest of the way down the mountain and finished up in just under 8 hours. It was one hell of a workout and an awful lot of fun. I really, really like hiking.

Sunday we woke up and headed back to Bangor Maine and then did a little exploring along the coast. Our exploring led us to Camden Maine on the coast where we decided to go Sea Kayaking. This was also a great workout. Lots of fun for two hours, great core and shoulder workout. I'm pretty much ready to buy a Sea Kayak.


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