So Nina and I went to Tracy's parents' place in North Liberty, Maine and used it as a base camp for a trip to Mount Katahdin in central Maine. At 5,268' it is the highest point in Maine and the AMC refers to the knife edge route on Katahdin as the "most spectacular mountain climb in the eastern US."

Tracy and I along the Hunt Trail ridge

Katahdin sits in Baxter State Park, a very large and intentionally primitive forested area in central Maine. In order to keep impact low, there are very few campsites within the park and trailhead parking is limited. There is a reservation system for campsites which allows you to register for a spot 4 months in advance. For almost all sites and days, all spots fill up the day reservations are first taken. Nina called the park repeatedly asking about cancellations and managed to snag one for a single night at the Katahdin Stream Campground.

Katahdin Stream is on the Appalachian Trail (whose northern terminus is the summit of Katahdin) and is an excellent campsite. By some extreme luck, the campsite with the cancellation was actually the best one in the whole campground. If you ever get the chance to use this campground, we highly recommend Lean-To #1. Unfortunately, Katahdin Stream is on the opposite side of the mountain from the knife edge, but the 5.1 miles to the summit are still really beautiful and fun trail.

We summited in about 4.5 hours on the mostly class 2+ trail with some limited class 3 scrambling. The summit was a zoo with at least 30 people up there. Most people took the Abol trail, a more strenuous but quicker ascent than what we did. Some took the knife edge from Cathedral Peak. The view of the knife edge was spectacular. Definitely Colorado-caliber roughness, though decidedly more oxygen. I'll have to come back some time and hike that route.

On a nerdier note, this was my 30th state highpoint and 91st county highpoint. With 4,150' of vertical gain from the campsite, this was the most gross gain I've undertaken on a single-day trip.