The Birches

We valiantly finished the 100 mile wilderness, technically this morning but truthfully all of the hard work took place over the course of the last 3 days. Baxter park envelopes our final challenge (Mt Katahdin), which we are perfectly positioned to tackle by staying one night in “The Birches”. This park is popular and reservations for camping are generally hard to obtain in advance- and it would be hard for a backpacker to anticipate their exact arrival date months in advance… luckily they have a system designed to help but capacity was limited to 12 hikers per day (!) so we got up super early to be prepared. Yes, after a 30 mile day! We wanted to arrive at the park’s kiosk and claim our space. It was necessary and important, otherwise we would be stuck and contemplating stealth camping (illegal in Baxter). We got the spaces and had an easy day of hiking (15 miles, low altitude). Several impressive waterfalls today en route. The air was hot, and buggy at times but we did some pond swimming to cool off and took our time- the journey is almost over. Mile 2193.2Leggi altro