Leslie and David's Wanderings: 3 August 2022 Katahdin Woods and Waters NM

We had one last national park unit to visit in Maine. The Katahdin Woods and Waters NM is a fairly new park unit and does not even have a formal visitor center. There is an information desk in the Lumbermen’s Museum in Patten where we stopped to pick up a map and get our passport stamp. The park is not very developed yet and the hiking options are still pretty limited. We chose to go back to the southern portion of the park and do the 16 mile scenic loop. The road into the southern portion of the park is a gravel road maintained by private lumber companies. It was in fairly decent shape and every once in a while, there would be a sign to keep you going in the right direction. Portions of the loop road are not even in the GPS Navigators data base yet. Once we entered the park, it was clear that the roads were former logging roads but have had at least some maintenance. Not an issue for the Behemoth and we didn’t even have to go into four-wheel drive. Most of the scenic drive you are deep in woods with occasional low hanging branches. We finally came to the marked scenic overlook and drove up to the parking area. There we had an unobstructed view of Katahdin Mountain, the northern terminus of the Appalachian National Trail. As we pulled into the parking area, two other vehicles pulled in behind us. One of the occupants muttered “You damn well have to want to get here” as he climbed out. We agreed, the 32 miles of gravel road to get to this overlook were a bit rustic. Looking at the mountain from a distance, it seems like a rough way to end a 2200 mile hike. The mountain itself is in Baxter State Park and not part of the national monument. We broke out our picnic lunch and sat down to enjoy the view. After lunch we decided to continue around the scenic loop rather than go back the way we came. We had an occasional view of the surrounding wood hills but much of the drive was in deep woods. We did come across occasional trail heads that looked more like old logging roads. Eventually getting back to pavement, we decided to take Maine 11 Scenic Byway rather than the interstate to get to Presque Isle where out hotel was located. We did not bring the Wanderer up here because there were no RV parks in the area that could take it. We stayed at the Sure Stay (part of Best Western) in Presque Isle ($220 per night). It was the only pet friendly hotel in the area. The town of Presque Isle is pretty small and dining options were limited. After getting Etta settled in the hotel, we headed out to a Chinese Food restaurant recommended by the front desk. Service was extremely slow and the food was not worth the wait.