We woke up after a cold night (both of us woke up in the middle of the night to put on warmer clothes), and we cooked some oatmeal and packed up and headed off towards Chimney Pond Campground.
The walk to Chimney Pond Campground was somewhat rocky, but we made it to our next campsite (we would be staying in a "Lean-To" at Chimney Pond on Friday night) by lunchtime. We ate our sandwiches (PB&J) and then we left our packs to climb to the Highest Point in Maine, Baxter Peak (>5200 feet elevation).
The climb up to Baxter Peak was along the more difficult trail, the Cathedral Trail. It involved some real rock climbing, and parts of the climb were extremely steep.
The beginning of the climb started out relatively easy, though, and it afforded us good views of the mountain we were about to climb:
The trail quickly toughened, though, and our pace slowed. We had to scramble up steep rocks. It was a good thing we left our backpacks at the campground, or we probably wouldn't have made it. This picture gives a sense of the steepness of the rocks and how far we climbed up (we started at the trees):
Once we finished our steep climb up the rocks, we still had more climbing. Here is a picture from the end of the major rock scrambling, while we took a short break before making our way to the top.
We still had another few hundred feet of elevation to climb before we made it to the top, but soon enough we made it to the top of Mount Katahdin: Baxter Peak!
After we left Baxter Peak, we started down the Saddle Trail and made our way back to Chimney Pond. According to the guide book, the Saddle Trail was the "least difficult" trail connecting Chimney Pond to Baxter Peak, but we still took a long time scrambling down rocks. We got back to the campground around dusk and we had enough natural light to be able to cook, clean, and eat without using our flashlight. Here is a picture of Jenny starting our hike down the Saddle Trail. It's pretty rocky here, but not too steep (yet):
After we cooked our pasta dinner, we cleaned up and went to bed in our Lean-To:
