Mount Katahdin (5,210') was my first attempt at climbing a mountain.  I say "attempt" because we didn't make the summit.  Mt. Washington, New Hampshire, was my first actual highpoint. I must confess that if it weren't for my experience on that first trip to Mt. Katahdin I would not have taken up Mountaineering and Highpointing. 

My desire to climb a mountain came from renting the movie "K2". I pulled out the map one day and ascertained that Mt. Washington, New Hampshire, was the highest point in the northeastern United States.  I was not naive enough to think that my first mountaineering experience should be for the highest peak in the northeast so I looked at the other mountains in the northeast.  There was this mountain in Maine named Katahdin.  My best friend had moved to Maine some years before so I called him and informed him I was coming to visit and I wanted him to accompany me on my training climb for Mt. Washington on Mt. Katahdin. As a pre-requisite I insisted he rent the K2 movie. After all, I thought, Mt. Katahdin is 1000 feet shorter than Mt. Washington... how hard could it be?

My friend, Tony, lived in Portland and Mt. Katahdin was a 7 hour drive.  Tony's work obligations provided that we left on our road trip to Mt. Katahdin at 5:00 PM after his work day on a Friday.  Saturday was the fourth of July.  We left after his work day and arrived at Baxter State Park at midnight.  The gate was closed so we decided to set up camp just outside the park gate until morning at which time we thought we would enter the park and climb the mountain.  We found a place to establish camp and got out of the car and wondered around for a while.  It was very quit except for faint humming sounds.  Then, I was bitten. Ouch! It was mosquitoes.  Man eaters at that.  We retreated to the car rolled up the windows and closed the vents.  We sat there silently and still heard humming.  We got the idea to turn on the dome light because the light attracted them.  As they swarmed around the light we killed them.  After about an hour we had killed them all and finally thought we had found peace.  Then we realized we were out of air.  Tony came up with the idea to use the screen part of the tent to cover the opening when we slightly opened a window.  It worked well.

July 4, 1993

Morning came and we awoke with the dawn.  Moose were sounding calls in the distance.  It was eerie.  We then drove back to the main gate where we were met by the park ranger at the gatehouse.  We pulled up to the gatehouse with a very cocky attitude. The ranger said "good morning gentlemen, what are your plans for the day".  We replied, what else, we are here to climb the mountain.  The ranger replied "yup, well, turn the car off we need to talk about this".  I knew then we were in trouble.  The ranger asked how much experience we had hiking above tree line.  We lied and stated that we had been doing this for years.  The ranger asked if we had cold weather clothing.  We replied that we did.  We didn't, after all it was 76 degrees in northern Maine that day... what was he talking about?  The ranger asked what route we would be using.  We didn't know there could be more than one route. We thought you just walked straight up.  We asked for a suggestion stating that we wanted something challenging to match our abilities.  The ranger thought for awhile and then said he would send us up a trail called "knife edge".  He said it would be good this day because the wind was blowing hard up there. We said "bring it on."

From the gatehouse we drove 8 miles on a very bad and pothole infested dirt road to the parking area.  Tony placed a stupid looking hockey bag containing a little water and some other worthless items over his shoulders and away we hiked. Neither Tony nor I owned a real backpack.  After 1/2 an hour it was amazing how heavy that bag became.  Hours and miles passed.  We were getting tired because we were so out of shape.  Finally, we started up what appeared to be a big mountain.  However, other peaks appeared higher and on several occasions Tony asked me if we were on the right trail.  More hours passed.  More physical excertion.  We passed the tree line.  This was the first time in my life I had ever climbed above a tree line.  It was beautiful to look back over the Maine wilderness from whence we came.  More excertion.    At this point we thought we could see where the summit should be.  But actually the top of the mountain was socked in by thick lenticular clouds generated by the mountain itself.  The rest of the sky was perfectly clear as far as the eye could see in every direction.  Up and up we strained on.  We then entered into the cloud.  The cloud, or is it fog when your standing on ground, became so thick we could only see a few yards.  Finally, success! we were at the top! We did it! We made it!  We sat down on a rock beside each other to drink some water and to savor our accomplishment. The cloud was so thick at this point visibility was down to about a meter.  As we sat there the cloud broke for just a moment.  We looked behind us and saw nothing but straight down.  It turns out we had sat on the edge of a huge cliff and didn't know it.  We instantly jumped forward away from the sheer precipice.  Wow, that was scary.  The cloud broke some more and we could see the true summit 1.1 miles away along a serrated ridge with steep drops off both sides. We were actually on a peak called Paloma.  The picture below is the view from Paloma to Baxter peak, the summit of Mt. Katahdin. The Knife Edge Trail is the ridge on the left.

The whole way down we were very angry with ourselves.  We had failed and we hated it.  In fact, this failure haunted me for an entire year until I made it back to Katahdin.  The hike down and out from the mountain seemed to take forever.  I have come to learn that knowing when to turn around and go down is the mark of a safe and successful mountaineer.