Reconnect with nature, and yourself, at Nicatous Lodge

When it comes to really escaping the hustle and bustle of daily life there's no better place than a spot far from where the pavement and power lines end. One such place is in a corner of Hancock County that's so remote it doesn't even have a name, just a number, – T3 ND.

That's where you'll find Nicatous Lodge at the north end of Nicatous Lake. For more than 50 years, the lodge and cabins have been a home base to a mix of visitors that can include fishermen, paddlers, hikers, hunters, ATV riders and snowmobilers. And many folks like to do nothing at all. Head down to the screened gazebo at the shore with a good book and see how fast the afternoon disappears.

The Native American name for the lake is Kiasobeak, which means "Clear Water Lake." With just a handful of private camps on the edges, the lake boasts some 34 miles of shoreline, numerous sandy beaches, and 76 islands devoid of evidence of human occupation.

Some 22,000 acres of the surrounding forest is now a preserve that allows rustic camping at established sites.

Established as a camp for boys in 1928, the lodge today features the authentic log main building containing a spacious lobby, small library, the dinning room and restaurant-quality kitchen. Out front, a broad porch sports views miles down the lake. A large field stone fireplace is the building's centerpiece. There are several guest rooms located on the second level.

Out front are the docks that service fishing boats (bring your own or you can rent one or arrange for a guide), a handful of small pleasure craft, and the lodge's fleet of canoes, kayaks, a sunfish sailboat (free for use by guests) and the swimming beach and float.

Surrounding the main lodge and nestled in the trees are nine housekeeping cabins, in a variety of configurations.

Most overlook the rushing waters of Nicatous Stream which arcs around the camp in a broad, sweeping curve where trophy trout can often be coaxed from a cool, deep eddy.

The decor is a unique blend of one part estate sale and another part L.L. Bean – with a pinch of grandma's attic. The floors creak and you can see all the pipes in the bathroom(the better to keep them from freezing in winter). Winter woodstoves are removed by summer so that the fireplaces can function.

In the cupboards are coffee cups that don't match and pots and pans that didn't begin life as part of an expensive set. What you will discover is that the sheets are crisp and clean, the blankets warm and anything you prepare in one of their vintage cast iron frying pans will be delicious – in short, utility and authenticity. There are no radios or televisions in the cabins although there is a satellite dish in the lodge.

When it comes to nightlife you'll have to settle for the calls of barded owls, the breeze whispering in the tall pines overhead and the haunting cries of loons out on the lake.

Be forewarned, however. The one thing you won't find anywhere, no matter how hard you look – is pretention.

Folks renting cabins can do their own cooking, although meals can be taken in the dining room which is also open to the public at various times of year. Electricity is provided by the camp's quiet generators that also charge a giant battery bank so no motors can be heard running at night or at times during the day.

While there are plenty of comforts at Nicatous Lodge, it's what they don't charge for that folks value the most. Waves lapping at the shore are the traditional way of marking time. Peace and solitude abound as sunlight filters through ancient pines to dance and play on the ground. At night, the brilliant arc of the Milky Way high overhead is the only bright light you'll see.

Cell phone service is spotty at best. But, for those who can't stand being off line for too long there's free wifi in the lodge.

The only guaranteed connection you'll find at Nicatous Lodge, however, will be with mother nature.

Following in his own footsteps

Carey Kish of Hall Quarry got back onto the Appalachian Trail (AT) here last week after a quick visit to Mount Desert Island. As he crested Bear Mountain and prepared to cross the Hudson River on a soaring suspension bridge, his pace was quickened by the sight of familiar ground – the friendly hills of New England, looming just 25 miles ahead in the haze.

Starting on Springer Mountain in Georgia in March, he's already walked some 1,400 miles. Everything he needs to survive in the wilds he carries in the backpack on his back.

Now, he's got just 800 miles to go to get back to the northern end of the trail in Maine. There's still Mount Washington and the rest of the Presidential Range to tackle. And Mahoosuc Notch, the AT's toughest mile, awaits just over the border from New Hampshire.

Once through the 100-mile Wilderness he'll be standing at the foot of Katahdin, the finish line in sight. That's all tough hiking. But for the 56-year-old veteran outdoorsman, hiking guide book author, and outdoor columnist it's all familiar ground. In fact, for Kish, that's doubly true. This is his second hike along the AT. He first was nearly four decades ago.

"I hiked the Appalachian Trail at age 18 and it ruined me for life," Kish jokes during a chat while back on MDI. That was in 1977 when he was fresh out of Bangor High School.

"I think the freedom of the trail, that hiking DNA, got instilled in me," he explains.

Although his older body may take longer to adjust to the insults and indignities of hiking 15 to 20 miles a day over mountaintop after mountaintop, the lightness of gear now, and its quality, is way ahead of where things were in the 1970s. "Back then there really wasn't that much available," he adds.

Preparing for this AT hike went smoothly, Kish says. "I already had most of the gear," he explains. He says it took about 20 hours of preparation. He put together an Excel spreadsheet. Reference materials such as detail section maps and the "Appalachian Trail Data Book," are indispensable aids. "Basically I sketched it all out on the back of a beer napkin," he adds.

Each year, approximately 2,500 people set out from Springer Mountain in Georgia to hike the entire AT. Around 250-300 actually finish.

The rush to get going often leads to as many as 100 people beginning on the same day. They form a fluid wave heading north, often crowding the shelters and the best tent sites. "I started on March 18," Kish says. "Lucky for me I seem to have missed most of that."

Especially on sections below New England, chances to resupply and to divert into a nearby town to rest, shower, and eat other than backpacking food, are plentiful. Kish's Facebook Page and blog "Six Moon Journey," often mentions copious consumption of food and brew, along with the progress of other hikers (all known by their trail names), the natural wonders, and how places have changed in the 38 years since he had seen them last. Still, despite eating all he can, Kish has managed to drop 30 pounds so far on his trek.

While some worry the AT is getting too crowded, Kish says there's ample opportunity to connect with nature. "There's still a lot of solitude to be found. I find it especially during the day. There's company at night around the shelters but you can always tent elsewhere if it gets to be too much," he adds.

Every year sections of trail get improved, moved away from development or rerouted. Back in 1977, as much as 200 miles of the AT involved walking along busy roads. Today that is down to less than 20 miles. "It continues to grow and improve," Kish said.

Kish, who retired from his day job with the Portland Council of Governments last year, is a well-know Appalachian Mountain Club guide book author. Among his titles are "AMC’s Best Day Hikes Along the Maine Coast."

He is editor of AMC's "Maine Mountain Guide." His hiking column appears in the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram. A Registered Maine Guide and wilderness first responder, Kish has also done long-distance hikes in Canada, Europe and other places in the United States.
He tried to repeat his AT trek before, both in 1989 and in 1994. Each time, he had to cut it short for various reasons.

Along with retirement that gave him the time to repeat his AT adventure, Kish credited his wife Fran for serving as support crew and understanding his need to hit the trail. "My wife has been a trooper," he says. "She's been wonderful."

According to Kish, finishing the AT a second time has been a very long term goal.

"It's been in the works since the day I finished the other one 38 years ago. It has been my major influence."

'A Walk in the Woods'

After getting back on the trail in New York, Kish posted a passage on his Facebook Page that he called "my favorite passage, from Bill Bryson's 'A Walk in the Woods,'" about the Appalachian Trail. The movie based on the book, and starring Nick Nolte and Robert Redford, is due out in September.
Bryson writes:

"Distance changes utterly when you take the world on foot. A mile becomes a long way, two miles literally considerable, ten miles whopping, fifty miles at the very limits of conception.

"The world, you realize, is enormous in a way that only you and a small community of fellow hikers know. Planetary scale is your little secret. Life takes on a neat simplicity, too. Time ceases to have any meaning. When it is dark, you go to bed, and when it is light again you get up, and everything in between is just in between. It’s quite wonderful, really. You have no engagements, commitments, obligations, or duties; no special ambitions and only the smallest, least complicated of wants; you exist in a tranquil tedium, serenely beyond the reach of exasperation, 'far removed from the seats of strife,' as the early explorer and botanist William Bartram put it.

"All that is required of you is a willingness to trudge. There is no point in hurrying because you are not actually going anywhere. However far or long you plod, you are always in the same place: in the woods. It’s where you were yesterday, where you will be tomorrow. The woods is one boundless singularity. Every bend in the path presents a prospect indistinguishable from every other, every glimpse into the trees the same tangled mass. For all you know, your route could describe a very large, pointless circle.

" In a way, it would hardly matter... Walking for hours and miles becomes as automatic, as unremarkable, as breathing. At the end of the day you don’t think, 'Hey, I did sixteen miles today,” any more than you think, “Hey, I took eight-thousand breaths today.' It’s just what you do."

Mile-high Katahdin

Consider the time-honored quote from Shakespeare — “What’s in a name?/That which we call a rose/By another name would smell as sweet.”

That line kept popping into my mind recently as I pondered repeated references to Maine’s tallest mountain in the media as “mile-high Mount Katahdin.” Few people realize that the famous edifice’s highest point on Baxter Peak, which also just happens to be the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail, is actually just short of that mark.

That fact came home to roost not too long ago when a team of University of Maine scientists re-measured the mountain using satellite and electronic technology and discovered that Katahdin is actually about seven inches higher than originally thought.

It seems that way back in 1941, the folks with good, old-fashioned surveying equipment (which didn’t need batteries, laser beams, solar arrays or a high-speed connection with the Internet) calculated that Katahdin was all of 5,267 feet high. Those of you who are familiar with measurements will note that this is exactly 13 feet shy of a mile. But even on Katahdin, man could not leave nature alone.

Legend has it that someone – perhaps a troop of industrious Boy Scouts or maybe some bored backwoods traveler in search of enlightenment, or maybe the legendary king of Katahdin rangers, Roy Dudley – piled up tons of rocks at the summit cairn to elevate Katahdin to the lofty mile-high club.

Now, while there is a pretty big pile of rocks at the top, I doubt it’s 13 feet high. But who cares? And that’s exactly my point about the most recent measurement – which added .6 of a foot (which by the way is 7.2 inches, not six inches as reported by the Associated Press) to Katahdin’s total.

I’d hate to be the guy who has to go up there and scratch the new total onto the little bronze surveyor’s benchmark.

Funny, though, driving in from Millinocket, Katahdin (That's right, not Mount Katahdin as Katahdin means "Greatest Mountain," and to say "Mount Greatest Mountain" makes no sense) does not look any bigger.

I wonder if the Native Americans who lived in the area and dare not tread on Katahdin for fear of angering evil spirits, would have cared if they knew it was really a tad taller than their ancestors thought.

For the thousands of people who trek to the top of Katahdin each year, I doubt the extra seven inches will matter. No one will throw up their hands in disgust and give up plans to climb “the mountain of the people of Maine” upon learning they will have further to go than they originally planned.

Percival Baxter, who personally assembled and donated the park that bears his name and saved Katahdin for all time, would probably, if he were alive, find the extra height interesting in an academic sense. But that would be all.

For sure, the people who each day work and play in the shadow of this magnificent mountain won’t notice much difference. Pilots flying overhead won’t have to adjust their altimeters to keep from making an abrupt final touch down on either side of the Knife Edge Trail.

Whether Katahdin is 5,267 feet or a mile high really makes no difference. Its grandeur and ability to inspire remain intact, from the early days when Thoreau described its majesty to this day and long into the future. The thrill of having climbed Maine’s highest peak, to stand at the top and look out upon what seems to be the rest of the world, will not be diminished by this recent addition to the sum of humanity’s knowledge.

According to the scientists who made the recent measurements, they will probably do it again at some time in the future if there are sufficient technological advancements which, unfortunately, there always are.

I guess all we can ask is, Why? To steal a perfectly good line from Shakespeare: “What’s in a height? That which we call Katahdin by another benchmark would be as steep.”

Corporate logos set new Appalachian Trail speed record

Ultra marathoner Scott Jurek, (Photo above from Scott Jurek Facebook) just set a new unofficial record last week for the fastest transit of the 2,200 mile-long Appalachian Trail. I have two thoughts about that.

One – Good for him.

Two – What's the point?

Notice I didn't say he hiked the trail. Far from it. He scurried from Georgia to Maine with an entourage larger than a logistics division for a platoon of Navy Seals. Their weapons of choice: cameras, laptops, cell phones and other gear to provide constant updates to legions of desk-bound followers.

They travelled in a custom van, splashed with manufacturers' logos, containers brimming with swag. He carried no pack – didn't make or break any camps. Anybody who fancies themselves as somebody, who has already exhausted their 15 minutes of fame once, twice, or even three times, seemed to jump on for the ride.

No one is allowed to advertise on the AT. Unless, of course, like Scott Jurek, you turn yourself into a human billboard. In nearly every photograph Jurek is wearing a headband with corporate logos. I guess capitalism's scarlet letters don't equate with lifting your metaphorical skirts – providing you can hide behind the fig leaf of "sponsorships."

Personally I think he would have been much more comfortable, particularly on humid days, if he had just had the logos tattooed on his forehead.

The AT was created to be a place for personal journeys. The Appalachian Trail Conference is to be congratulated for refusing to maintain speed records for the trail. They understand there's a big difference between being able to claim you've completed the Appalachian Trail and bragging you did it faster than anyone else. It's there for taking measure of yourself. Fast or slow, all at once, or in sections, how you do it is up to you.

The only clock that counts is the beating of your own heart.

When you turn a trip into a global media event supported by a cast of thousands, however, it is not only the tradition of the trail that is diminished. The inability to see that as a subversion of purpose diminishes the individual's personal accomplishment as well.

Those who actually do the Appalachian Trail adopt, find, or are bestowed with "trail names." Some bring them from past lives or adventures while others wait to discover it as part of the journey. I don't know if Jurek had one for his trip but I would like suggest one that fits – both physically and spiritually: "Been there – didn't see that."

Particularly disappointing was the disrespect shown to Baxter State Park, here in Maine, portions of which were turned into a circus by this Spandex speed record carnival. In fact, the park issued three violations notices to Jurek including drinking in public, littering and hiking with an oversize group.

If you haven't seen it yet, check out this Facebook post on the park's page. Nice to see that common sense is still in ample supply in the shadow of Maine's highest mountain.

On the Maine Woods Discovery Facebook page this week, Jurek is hailed as a shining example of Northwoods spirit. I can't begin to express how disappointing it is that whoever is making those posts thinks that's the case. He's a good example, maybe, of the spirit of getting a bunch of frat guys to book a cabin, grab two kegs of beer, and scream like pantywaists while running Cribwork Rapids on a rafting trip.

But a true representative of spirit of Maine's Great Northwoods? Not so much.

Make no mistake, running some 50 miles a day for 46 days is an impressive accomplishment. He should be proud. If I met him face-to-face, I'd shake his hand. There's no way that I could do what he did, a fact several of those critical of this communication will no doubt point to in an attempt to divert attention away from the fundamental truth of these words.

Even at the top of Katahdin, Scott Jurek didn't remove the headband, undoubtedly contractually-bound to leave it there especially when cameras were present. The end result is that a man didn't make it to the top of the mountain. His 'brand" is what everyone was celebrating on top.

Last week, news stories should have announced that a headband, with prominently-placed corporate logos, set the speed record on the AT.

In selling his prime facial real estate to the highest bidders, it's obvious that those corporations own Scott Jurek. Sadly, by extension, they now own his accomplishment as well.

www.earlbrechlin.com

Small engine repair, taxes done

Like fiddleheads in soggy woods, spring in Maine also brings a fresh crop of roadside signs advertising home businesses.

Small stands selling cucumbers, squash and corn on the honor system have been around for years, but lately the proliferation of at-home professions has branched out and now often takes on a decidedly high-tech or mechanical spin.

What is more amazing, though, than even the fact of how many people have little businesses on the side is the combination of skills these roadside signs betray.

Near Norway, Maine, a while back I saw a sign offering “Live bait, worms, computer service.”

You have to wonder if one day some old fisherman came in, noted the night crawlers he used the week before had caught a wicked “keepah” togue, and matter-of-factly asked the proprietor if he thought he could do anything with a balky 340ZX 50 terrabyte hard drive.

Recently I saw a sign advertising “Small Engine Repair — taxes done.”

In Gardiner, a fellow just opened up a hair salon/television repair shop. I guess the idea there is to tinker with the set and get a wicked shock off the transformer which causes the hair to stand right on end, making it easier to cut.

The hair angle has repeated itself in Ellsworth where a salon in the Mill Mall notes it has 14 chairs and is also a dry cleaning drop-off. Make sure when they ask if you want any conditioner that you read the label carefully.

Down East off Route 1, I once spied a sign looking for customers interested in “DVD movies/slab bacon.”

They have probably branched out into popcorn and farm fresh eggs, toast and automatic transmission repair by now for all I know.

In addition to the above, you often see the words, “custom sawing, doll hospital, llama wool, small engines fixed, worms, bait, crawlers, piglets, chickens, rabbits, goats milk, gardens tilled, fresh cheese and palms read, all in league with the word, “crafts.”

I have yet to fully understand exactly what “crafts” are except I know it often involves beads, yarn, gallons of white glue and ridiculously long hours on the part of someone who doesn’t get cable.

I don’t know why “crafts” always seem to be sold out of converted garages. No doubt the person responsible started out simply with a sign at the end of his or her driveway advertising “Poodle grooming/garages converted to ‘crafts’ shops.”

The signs, themselves, reveal a lot about the proprietor. The neater and more cleanly lettered the sign, the older the proprietor.

The absolutely neatest ones are those of the retired guys who sell “camp wood.” Lumber at the home center isn’t stacked as straight as the neatly-tied $3 bundles of firewood set out to the side of the road by a retired guy. The best examples of this can be seen right here on Mount Desert Island in the displays put out seasonally by members of the Otter Creek Camp Wood Cartel. They may protest, but I don’t think it is any accident that everyone there charges exactly the same. In such a competitive environment, neat stacking becomes the only way for the consumer to differentiate between suppliers.

The whole roadside sign practice is reminiscent of the humor shown by the first convenience stores that innocently advertised “Eat here, get gas.”

The Hulls Cove General Store in Bar Harbor honors this fine roadside tradition with clever slogans that change each week.

Some of my favorites include “Summer people, some are not” and the Fourth of July standby, “Welcome to Lubec, maps inside.”

During the controversy over whether tourists were welcome in Mount Desert, the sign suggested “Be sure to visit Northeast Harbor.”

The truth is that home business roadside signs are testimony to the fact that Mainers are in general an industrious lot and that most folks, particularly in rural areas, just can’t get by on what they make in a 40-hour work week alone.

I think to be really successful, some backyard businessperson might try a new combination for which there should be a huge market. All they have to do is put a small sign out by the road advertising “lawn mowers fixed, crafts, taxes done, roadside signs painted - while you wait.”

Solar storms produce Downeast lightshow

ACADIA NATIONAL PARK — Strong solar storms on Monday set off a chain of events leading to one of the strongest displays of the Aurora Borealis over the Northern Hemisphere on Monday night.

For a handful of hopeful visitors atop Cadillac Mountain, the tallest point within 50 miles of the ocean from Maine to Rio De Janeiro, the Northern Lights appeared as a series of pale patches of light and streaks above Bar Harbor and Frenchman's Bay.

It was an unusually warm night atop the mountain. The temps were in the mid 50s and there was no wind. There were even a few mosquitoes buzzing about.

The lights moved almost imperceptibly behind patchy clouds. The light show appears when charged particles ejected during solar storms on the sun are captured in the Earth's magnetic field. These particles are pulled towards the poles and cause gases in the upper atmosphere to fluresce and glow, similar to what happens in a neon light.

In the Southern Hemisphere the display is call the Aurora Australis.

X marks the spot

On dusty old treasure maps, “X” always marked the spot. Or so we thought as children.

Granted, some people don’t have the foggiest idea of where they are even with a map, but I have always been fascinated by them. There’s a little piece of the world right before you, albeit in only two dimensions. The lines and markings, however, allow the mind to easily upgrade the image to three. This, of course, gives us distance and topography which then allow us to estimate the fourth dimension involved in navigation time.

Maps are manly. We all know that any self-respecting guy would rather die than violate the secret code prohibiting American males from asking directions from a stranger. But that same individual will eagerly consult a map.

Holding that magic paper, peering out intently, and uttering an occasional harrumph or growl while chomping on the stub of a cigar creates a take-charge image for the holdee, even if someone else has to bravely note that the map’s upside down.

In Maine, those seeking a definitive guide to the back country have few choices. For years, there were mostly out-of-date government-produced U.S. Geodedic Survey (USGS) topographical maps.

Anecdotally, I would say the average freshness date for Maine topos is about 1942. The Cherryfield quadrangle, which includes the Narraguagus River, undoubtedly is among the oldest, having been updated as recently as 1902.

Sure, the mountains haven’t changed that much in the last 91 years, but the roads and infrastructure have. The best example of which is the fact that the large dam and lake shown on the Cherryfield map are long gone. A new, much smaller dam and extended marsh with a  winding stream bed now take its place. Look for a large lake at the end of that river, and you may be there awhile.

And then, lo and behold, it came unto us: the gospel according to Delorme.

Delorme Mapping is a small company in Freeport that produces the bible of how to get there from here — The Maine Atlas and Gazetteer.

If actor Karl Malden did commercials for Delorme instead of  American Express, the slogan would still be the same: “Don’t leave home without it!”

On a recent trip to the environs north of Moosehead Lake, I did not fail to see a single party without one. They were folded up and battered on the seats of dusty pickup trucks, tossed casually on dashboards of sedans, and rolled up in back pockets. Along Interstate 395 in Bangor, I saw a state cop standing with a woman on a median strip consulting an Atlas and Gazetteer  as to which exit might be best.

You can bet that when Delorme shows the road turning to a line of dashes it’s time to put your vehicle in four-wheel drive, as it will be little more than a skidder trail.

Personally, I keep one in the truck, one in the office, and still another near the phone at home, so that when I’m discussing upcoming expeditions the people on the other end, who of course have their own, know exactly where we’re going.

The Atlas  divides Maine into boxes, with each one in effect its own map. There are 70 in all, with number one being Kittery and number 70 being a triangle of unorganized townships along the northwest border with Quebec. You are getting into the middle of nowhere when you get into maps with the high numbers. Most paved roads stop around the lower 40s; into the 50s, you are out there. Tell me you’ve been north of map 66 and I’ll shake your hand.

My problem is that it seems whenever I’m planning a trip the area I want to visit invariably is smack-dab at the intersection of four maps.

With the Atlas, you can flip the page or skip ahead. With the USGS maps you need to buy a slew of them and, except for the University of Maine at Orono Bookstore or L.L. Bean in Freeport, few places stock them all.

Thinking about pages of maps and navigation reminds me of an old “Bert and I” story, penned in the days before Delorme, about being lost in the fog. The chart for the bay they were in had unfortunately  blown over the side of their boat.

After hours of pondering, Bert finally seizes on a plan. Cigar, no doubt clenched firmly in his teeth, he announces that he has the solution. They’re going to weigh anchor, put up the sail, and run straight ahead until they get to the middle of the map on the next page. “Then,” says Bert, ”we’ll know exactly where we are.”