Katahdin 6-3-05

Baxter Peak and Pamola
Date Hiked- June 3rd
Trails Used- abol, knifes edge 3900 vertical feet in total
Distance- 11 miles, 8 hours
Conditions- Conditions were, good left the Abol trail head at 7 oclock after a 4:30 wake up, went to roaring brook camp site first, to be informed that all trails on the mountain were closed excpet abol ( a load of crap because trails were not wet, nor were they snowed in). We left abol hiking over some small streams, until we got to the rock scree that was about a mile long and 2000 vertical feet, grueling hiking as you could never count on the rocks staying in place, all in all we summited around 9:30 a mere 2.5 hours after we left. The weather was looking good and it was only 930 so we decided that we would hike the knifes edge as well (despite the closed status). We cached our bags near the top and ended up scampering across the super steep, exposed and tight trail. What fun, it was a really good trail and was easy going without packs. Got to pamola and turned around, back across the knifes edge, picked up our packs and headed down. Down was really hard over the rocks, constantly moving, took us 3 hours to get down what had took 2.5 to get up. All in all a good hike, great weather, good company, and lots of fun!

The Abol trail was open? I thought the Abol trail was more steep and more dangerous than the Hunt trail... weird.
The Knife's Edge is a trip. I went over it with a full pack and it was raining and foggy. There is a heavy scrambling descent right after Pamola that had me a little shaky!

The folks at Baxter are very conservative with what they allow. It's a little annoying to more experienced hikers, but since they've had to rescue avg Joes that think Katahdin is a walk in the park it makes them be careful like that - I stayed in the park for a week and they wouldn't let me book shelters that were more than 10 miles apart!

Checked the pics on your site. Awesome pics from Camel's Hump!