Getting to Know Baxter State Park

We arrived in Medway, Maine on August 4, 2021 and, after visits to some information centers that afternoon, we were up and out early to get acquainted with nearby Baxter State Park, the main object of this stay in the interior of Northern Maine.

We decided to drive a longer distance north and enter the park through the Matagamon Gate -- so called because the road at the gate runs along the shores of Grand Lake Matagamon, which is a reservoir impoundment of the East Branch of the Penobscot River, a wild and scenic river that, happily, runs right behind our campsite at Pine Grove Campground in Medway.

While our campground owner gave us the directions to the northern gate of the park, and urged us to take this route, she failed to mention that, along the way, we would get our first impressive views of the mighty Mount Katahdin: 

Mount Katahdin (Wikipedia points out that it is commonly called, "just 'Katahdin'") is the highest mountain in Maine at 5,269 feet. Its name means "The Greatest Mountain" in the native language of the Penobscot, and is the centerpiece of Baxter State Park. It is a steep, tall massif formed from a weathered granite intrusion.  Katahdin has inspired hikes, climbs, journal narratives, paintings, and a piano sonata. The area around the peak was protected by Governor Percival Baxter starting in the 1930s. Katahdin is the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail and is near a stretch known as the Hundred-Mile Wilderness.  In 1967, it was designated as a National Natural Landmark by the National Park Service.

Little did we know that this would be our only view of Katahdin this day, because, ironically, there are only a few places in Baxter State Park where an unimpeded, full view of the mountain is available.

As we approached Matagamon Gate, we spotted campers overflowing private campgrounds along the East Branch of the Penobscot River:

This was our first view of Grand Lake Matagamon.  I know...it doesn't look so big; but the whole lake was too big to fit in the camera lens:

To enter Baxter State Park, one must purchase an entry pass, and visitors are encouraged to purchase them online.  The cost is $15 per visit or $40 for the season.  Since we planned to enter at least three times, we purchased the season pass.  We received the sticker at the gate, and our Jeep Dusty bounced with joy because she got her first sticker -- proudly worn on her back side window:

We toured the park on the 46-mile Tote Road (more properly, the Nesowadnehunk Tote Road), which runs through the park between Matagamon Gate on the north and Togue Gate on the south.  The Tote Road was first created for horse-drawn wagons supplying lumbering and sporting camps.  The CCC, working out of Camp Baxter developed the first section of the Tote Road in 1933.

However, we didn't want to just drive the road, so we selected a relative short (3 mile) out-and-back hike on Fowler Brook Trail to Lower Fowler Pond, in order to get a sense of the park's wood-and-waters environment:

More boardwalks:

Believe it or not, northern Maine is already seeing the first touches of Autumn color even in early August.  When we snapped the photo below, we didn't realize that, thinking this bicolored leaf an outlier.  However, over the last week, we have seen more fall colors (perhaps to be reflected in upcoming blog entries) that emphasized to us that Winter is Coming.

Lower Fowler Pond was a gem, and it gave us our first in-park views of the mountains that form the heart of the park:

The scenery is gorgeous, and rivals some of the best we have seen in Alaska, Newfoundland and the other parts of the Canadian Maritimes:

One of the popular day visits in the park is Ledge Falls, so called because the Nesowadnehunk Stream (get it...the origin of the name of the Tote Road, which runs along it?) tumbles down ledges, creating nature's own waterslide:

Incidentally, a fellow blogger (credit WoodWarbling - Bird Camping in the North Maine Woods) points out, first, that the stream name is pronounced, "nesOHwednunk," and -- possibly in jest -- that the word "Nesowadnehunk, by the way, is probably a Penobscot Indian word meaning 'may the biting flies drive the white man off our land.'"

Be that as it may, the stream is very pretty:

One last stop along the Tote Road was for a site noted on the detailed park map as "Unknown River Driver."  This was too curious a title, and we drove slowly down the road, looking for the place where, according to the park map, something lay between the road and the stream.  In fact, the site wasn't so hard to find because it was a grave on the side of the road:

Nothing is known about the poor fellow in the grave, other than that he was a river driver (a logger who rode logs downriver) and presumably drowned doing his work.

Leaving the park to the south, out the Togue Gate, we eventually passed this piece of casual folk art, painted on a huge boulder to greet park visitors as they approached the south gate.  We think that it expresses an important sentiment -- one worth preserving: