WASHINGTON POST • July 23, 2024
Mistakes were made, an instructive combination of inexperience and overconfidence. On June 30 we drove up to Baxter State Park and hiked the comically rocky 3.3 miles from Roaring Brook to Chimney Pond, perched halfway up the north side of Mt. Katahdin in a spectacular bowl of cliffs. My 19-year-old son, Mica, and I set off to climb Katahdin, because our Appalachian Trail starts at its summit. Katahdin is not especially big. But it is, out of all proportion to its height, a difficult mountain to climb. We ascended the Saddle Trail from Chimney. The last four-tenths of a mile is straight up a loose sand and gravel landslide scar, on a continuous forty-degree slope. Despite that, I’ve seen more than one person climb Katahdin in Crocs. Mistake Number One: Underestimating how much energy climbing Katahdin took out of me. ~ Rusty Foster