7 of the Most Extreme of Maine’s Thriller Hikes

Summerguide 2005

By Cathy Genthner

1 The Knife’s Edge
Mt. Katahdin, Baxter State Park, Millinocket

The Knife’s Edge of Mt. Katahdin is the most spectacular and challenging traverse east of the Rockies and west of the Alps. Even the most experienced hiker has to think twice before crossing the mile-long perilous trail. It’s only a foot wide in many places, with a thousand-foot drop yawing before you if you lose your footing.

It was a clear crisp day in early February of 2004 when longtime hiker Tom Homstead of Glenburn started out for an ice climb with three friends. At 62, this was to be Homstead’s tenth and final ice climb of Katahdin. The group headed up the mountain and across the Knife’s Edge to the summit of Pamola Peak, where the chimney ends.

“The sky was so blue it was perfect,” Homstead remembers. “No wind. When we reached the summit of Pamola, we all shook hands and took pictures. Then we started back down towards the chimney. I placed my right crampon securely in the ice. I had to rotate around a boulder, and it was quite steep. I don’t know if a rock moved or what, but I swung round sharply and heard a wet snap.”

That wet snap was the sound of Homstead’s left fibula breaking. It was 2:30in the afternoon, with sunset only two hours away. Fighting back pain, Homstead’s mind raced through narrowing options. “It was 20 degrees and dropping fast. We could spend the night on the mountain, which we were equipped to do, or try to tough it out and get down. We decided on the second option. My hiking partners took some axes and nylon webbing and made a splint for my broken leg, packing the leg in ice to keep the swelling down. I used two other axes as crutches and began the slow and painful descent along Dudley Trail.

“The pain was so severe I couldn’t stand, but in order to get down the mountain, I simply had to stand at times,” Homstead says. “I half slid, half hobbled, and did a lot of sliding on my butt. It was harder on my climbing partners than me.”

At around seven that night—a full two hours after sunset—Homstead and the trio arrived at Chimney Pond, where they met a relieved park ranger who evaluated the situation and determined it was too dangerous to continue.

“We spent a long night in a log cabin,” Homstead says. “All I had for the pain was Tylenol, and we packed my leg in snow. Let’s just say it was extremely difficult to sleep.”

At daybreak, a snowmobile began the first leg of a race to take Homstead to the hospital. Henry David Thoreau once described Katahdin as being “anchored in the east.” Homstead had to fend off a flood of emotion while looking down to see the mountain’s God-like reflection sparkling in Chimney Pond.

“I don’t want to imply panic, but it did occur to me that people have died up there, and I could have too, if the injury had been worse or if weather conditions were bad,” says Homstead.

Remembering those powerful forces, he astonished his friends by returning to the Knife’s Edge just six months later, in August.

“I hiked a lot slower and a lot more carefully than I had in the past. Something seemed to draw me back to the exact spot where I fell, and I stopped for a moment, going back in time. Then, with a grateful heart, I continued on.”

2 Mahoosuc Notch
Upton

The one mile stretch here through a boulder field is the toughest and slowest mile on the Appalachian Trail.

Mahoosuc Notch, which lies between Mahoosuc and Fulling Mill Mountains, is an extremely narrow slash carved out by glaciers. As the ice passed, boulders the size of compact cars fell through this notch, creating a treacherous jigsaw for those who dare hike this section of the Appalachian Trail. To make matters worse, the trail is often wet; in fact, ice can be found year-round in the pockets of some boulders.

Ten years ago, Hawk Metheny, a backcountry management specialist with the Appalachian Mountain Club, was caretaking at Speck Pond camp. “I got a call that a hiker was injured and in trouble on the dangerous Mahoosuc Arm. When we got there, it was a woman with a fractured elbow. She’d slipped on wet rocks and tried to break her fall, painfully driving her clenched arm into a boulder on her way down. All we did was make a sling and help her out,” he says, but he understates. Somehow the group maneuvered their injured charge as gracefully as a gymnast over and under slippery boulders.

“I had her put her good arm around my shoulder and I gave her direction step-by-step. It’s just a tricky area. She couldn’t use her arm, which meant we had to support her body. She was relieved when we made it out. Once your rescue’s spirits lift, it makes an incredible difference.”

After seven hours of slowly making their way through the multi-level maze of boulders, the group made it back to camp. “Mahoosuc Notch is like a big boulder field, so if people fall, at least the most they can fall is eight feet.

“It’s totally rock out here. Some people compare it to the moon because of its surreal nature. It is mystical and it doesn’t get much sun. So it’s funny, some people actually come just to hike this stretch.

“But it’s not a place for the inexperienced, the uninitiated, the unprepared. Or the unlucky.”

3 Beehive
Acadia National Park, Bar Harbor

A smaller but equally dangerous version of the nearby Precipice is the Beehive, named because of its huge 520-foot formation that hovers above Sand Beach. The trail snakes through many iron ladders and switchbacks (a path that travels diagonally and turns back on itself because of the mountain’s steepness) leading up to the summit.

Tragedy struck here on August 4, 2000, when Burt Marks, 51, Gaithersburg, Maryland, missed a switchback and fell hundreds of feet to his death on the rocks below.

“He didn’t negotiate a switchback on this one section of the trail where it makes a really sharp turn. He fell 200 feet,” says Therese Picard, a law enforcement ranger at Acadia National Park. “This trail is dangerous. You have to watch out at all times.”

CPR was performed on Marks, but he could not be saved because of the extreme distance he fell.

“Each year there are several rescues on the Beehive and Precipice,” Picard says.

“With both Beehive and Precipice you’ve got one wall and a straight drop-off so if you lean and are not watching where you put your feet you are in big trouble,” Picard says. “I would say that most of the accidents are caused by inattention rather than inexperience. Also, people underestimate the difficulty of the trail.”

For hiking safety and gear preparation advice, visit Appalachian Mountain Club, at www.outdoors.org.

4 Precipice Champlain Mtn.
Acadia National Park, Bar Harbor

The legend of Precipice Trail walks a tightrope between a love story and the death of a woman on the Titanic.

Not long after the turn of the 20th century, Princeton Professor Rudolph Bruno created the trail that leads up the precipice on Champlain Mountain at Acadia National Park. A widower, Bruno had begun spending summers in Bar Harbor with his children, building a breathtaking mansion known as “High Seas” as a wedding present for his bride to be, Edith Evans of New York, who summered here on Mount Desert Island and with whom he was desperately in love.

“We all talk about it. Professor Bruno is part of the legend of the island and he built this amazingly beautiful structure on the sea for his love,” says Bar Harbor resident Michael Good. “The love story and the connection with the Precipice make it a very nice story.”

The romance ended tragically on the rocks as Evans died while on the maiden voyage of the Titanic in April 1912.

Some locals insist that Bruno died while working on a hiking trail on the Precipice, climbing higher into the clouds as if to make a connection with the dead. “Nope,” says Ed Garrett, president of the Bar Harbor Historical Society. “It was Bruno’s brother-in-law, Edward Beckwith, who really died from injuries sustained from a fall here when he grabbed onto loose rock on the Precipice. Bruno? He died of pneumonia from shoveling snow in 1917.” But before he died, he gave the 1,100-foot Precipice to the park in 1916, when it was proclaimed a national monument.

Designed and begun by Bruno, the trail remains in use today. It is one of the most dangerous hikes in Maine because the climb is nearly vertical on a trail that clings to a cliff. Ladders and rungs help hikers negotiate narrow passages and steep drop-offs.

How lucky are you in climbing, and in love?

5 Bigelow Mountain
Stratton

In October 2002, leaves were turning amber and crimson as Sandie Sabaka Hansen of Windham was close to completing her hike of the entire Appalachian Trail. She was alone that day, with her hiking buddies just an hour behind her as she hiked between the South Horn and West Peak of the Bigelow Range.

With six peaks east to west for over 12 miles, the range here is second only in popularity to mountains in the Katahdin region for challenging ridge walking.

Hansen was feeling strong and moving rapidly on a scramble (a field of rocks) when she failed to grip a boulder in front of her. The weight of her pack caused her entire body to fall back violently, driving her elbow into a protruding rock.

“My elbow was bleeding and generally my confidence was shaken,” she says. “I was mad that I hadn’t taken the extra minute to take my pack off and throw it up ahead of me.” On top of that, “I was hurrying daylight that day, hoping to make Little Bigelow shelter. I was swearing at the woods, which is a frightful activity when you’re alone. I was scared.”

Bleeding and upset, Hansen bandaged up her elbow and proceeded north. Once above the tree line, she encountered four women hiking together; one saw immediately that Hansen was distraught and still bleeding. Hansen’s solitary state seemed to horrify the woman. “I explained my companions were only a few miles away and that I’d already hiked 2,000 miles of the Appalachian Trail.” Hansen’s mental attitude improved as she talked with the other women in the group as they hiked by. Until the sky darkened as the weather suddenly took a tum for the worse.

“Out of nowhere it was blowing a gale up there and now I truly was alone,” Hansen says. “It was wild and woolly and I was loving it. I had to brace myself against the wind to stay within the rocky trail. I crossed West Peak, then quickly descended to Avery Col and back up to Avery Peak. [In spite of my injury], it was wonderful. I turned around on Avery and witnessed one of those moments that you never forget when you’re ‘out there’—the wild remoteness of the mountain range combined with clouds in the west backlit by the setting sun.”

Hansen finished the Appalachian Trail. However, her injury, combined with her mental state that day, “gave me a sense of how far out there I was and how close I’d had been to my own mortality.” Perhaps because of her experience of pain and solitude, this stretch of trail through the Bigelow Mountain Range remains Hansen’s favorite stretch of the entire Appalachian Trail.

6 Traveler Mtn. Trail
Baxter State Park, Millinocket

Hidden from crowds in the southeast part of the Baxter State Park, Traveler Mountain, in the northeast corner, is notorious for its unstable talus rock.

Named by voyageurs on the East Branch of the Penobscot River who said the mountain seemed to travel with them, the Traveler, at 3,541 feet, is the third-highest up here, with the Owl at 3,736 and Katahdin at 5,267. The peak can be accessed from the South Branch campground, reached by Baxter’s Matagamon Gate. What makes it so dangerous is the slope on the Center Ridge Trail. Talus is a kind of sharp rock that breaks off from cliffs, and up here it is falling like a house of cards. This will be the first full season that a new connector trail, leading from the Center Ridge, Howe Brook, and North Ridge Trail (on North Traveler Mountain) will be open. Because of the talus, hikers are allowed only to go up the Center Ridge Trail and come down using the North Traveler Trail. It is a oneway trail because of the danger involved.

“The important thing we’re suggesting is that it’s very hard to go downhill on talus rock,” says Jean Hoekwater, a park naturalist who has been at Baxter State Park since 1988. “It is loose and scrambling and it moves when you step on it. It is easy to lose your footing. You also have to watch for falling rocks from people ahead of you,” she says.

Traveler hasn’t been a popular destination for hikers, but that may change because of the new trail. The trail is long and strenuous, but the views are extraordinary and rewarding. The mountain gets a lot of sun because of its barren peaks that rise above the tree line. Even late in the season, it can be hot and water must be carried. The elevation gain is the equivalent of hiking Mt. Katahdin. Avoid hiking here in bad weather because the exposed ridges are confusing in clouds or fog.

7 Gulf Hagas,
Milo

Game Warden Sgt. Roger Guay and three other wardens responded to a call that Jeffrey Peet of Hampden had fallen nearly 150 feet down a sheer cliff of Gulf Hagas, just before Screw Auger Falls. Peet’s daughter, who had been injured trying to aid him, was able to make it out of Gulf Hagas and call for help. Rescue personnel including four groups of wardens responded with trucks—two from the Katahdin Iron Works Road and two from Greenville. All trucks were four-wheel-drive with chains. Even so, the trucks slid perilously.

“I was on the rescue team and it was a nice crystal-clear day, but because of all the ice everything was as smooth as a coke bottle. I was petrified we were going to get rescue officers and wardens killed. It was one of the most dangerous scenarios I’ve ever been in,” says Guay, who has covered the Gulf Hagas area for more than 18 years.

“Inside my truck, I slid down the lip of an embankment about 15 feet. I couldn’t move because the truck was in danger of going over—all the way over. I just sat there for an hour and a half, made my phone calls, and prayed.”

Guay’s truck was pulled from danger and he continued his rescue mission with the others.

Mike Morrison, a warden who was able to see the fallen hiker by climbing partway down the gorge, received a medal for his heroic efforts. A National Guard helicopter was called in to airlift the hiker using a cable, but by that time, 47-year-old Peet had tragically lost his life from the injuries sustained during his fall.

No matter if the rocks surrounding the gorge of Gulf Hagas are covered with ice or water, hiking conditions are extremely treacherous in summer or winter. In many places, the trail follows the edge of the gorge, with hundred-foot drops or more.

“One thing I’ve found is that a lot of people go into Gulf Hagas thinking it’s like a city park with nice easy walking trails,” Guay says. “With scenic outlooks, it’s a trail that follows the rim of a gorge. This fatality happened in early January, 2002. All of us have found it difficult to put that day behind us. I recommend absolute care everywhere you go in Gulf Hagas. When you add water, ice, or snow out here, it can be very hazardous.”