[Bill Menke’s Journal Entry for the 2013 Allagash Canoe Trip, Maine North Woods].

Friday, June 14, 2023. Dallas and I drove up from New York on Friday afternoon. The weather was beautiful.

We all met at Shari and Rob Estes’ house in Sidney Maine. Our group numbered nineteen paddles, Dallas and me (Bill Menke), from Tappan NY, Kathy Abbott, from Chicago IL, Matt Lausten and Jake Romo, from Lakewood CO, Brian and Katie Abbott, from Chicago IL, Gigi Estes, from Plymouth NH, Rob, Nick, Joel, Kenan and Linnea Estes, from Sidney Me, and Richard, Marg, Erin, Nate, Amy and David Estes, from Erie PA. We were joined by other family members, including Shari, Catherine, Diana and Martin Estes, Paul Estes, Ed and Maude Abbott, Ruthie and Harold Weeks. We all ate dinner together, a delicious meal of salad, pasta and black bean soup prepared by Shari.

I had brought the Allagash Teapot with me and exhibited it to the group. This crudely-made wooden wall hanging, with the outline of a teapot, was purchased from a street vendor in Allagash town at the end of the 1971 trip. On its back is the inscription, "In loving memory of the Royal Allagash Expedition, in the Year of our Phantom Mole 3 (1971 AD), Uncle John, David, Pamela, Ed". Dallas, Robert Estes and Bryan also attended that trip. Phantom Mole was Uncle John Abbott's trail name. This trip was very influential in Dallas’ and Bryan’s (and maybe others) lives, and was the prototype for the one we were beginning.

After dinner, Bryan led a group meeting where we discussed procedures and safety issues. Afterwards, we packed up and organized ourselves. We had tremendous piles of gear and wound up leaving many duplicate items behind. Matt, Rob and I built a boat rack for one of our two vans (the other already had one), so that we could haul four canoes up to the launch point. We were renting an additional five canoes from an outfitter, bringing our total to nine.

Saturday, June 15, 2013. The morning was sunny and warm. We left early in the morning; Churchill Dam, our launch point on the Allagash River, was an eight hour drive ahead. We stopped at Stillwater Avenue (Exit 186 on I95), a major commercial area in Bangor ME, to buy a few last minute supplies, and then continued on towards Millinocket ME, an old mill town near the southwestern edge of the Maine North Woods. We offloaded all our gear onto trucks owned by Katahdin Outfitters, the firm that we had hired to support out trip. We had arranged to rent the five additional canoes from them and for them to drive our two vans up to our take out point in Allagash town. The local IGA supermarket also delivered the food we had ordered.

We then spent two and a half hours being driven through the Maine North Woods, stopping at Telos Checkpoint to sign in. We followed several dirt logging roads that wound through the low but dense Maine woods. We spotted three moose that were grazing near the roadside, a cow with a calf and, later, another cow. I also sighted a partridge, a raven and a woodpecker. We arrived at the Churchill Dam campsite, where we to spend the night, in the late afternoon. The weather was beautiful but the site was very buggy, with many black flies and a few mosquitoes. I donned my head net and applied bug spray to fend then off.

The Churchill Dam site is a large open area on both sides of the north end of Churchill Lake and the Allagash River which issues from the dam. The two sides are bridged by a road on top of the concrete dam, itself, which is of a modern concrete design. The area has a huge, barn-line boarding house, now ruined, on the east side of the Allagash and ranger station and a small museum on the west side. We set up camp on the east side just below the dam, occupying two of the campsites.

A thwart had come loose from the gunnels of one of our canoes. I repaired it, using twine volunteered by Gigi. While some of our group fished, I went on a hike, following a riverside trail downstream for about half a mile. Tomorrow’s paddle would lead off with Chase rapids, a very challenging section of the river, and I wanted to inspect as much as I could of it from the land. The river was running high (1800 cfs) and some parts looked fairly tough. Several of us then practiced our canoeing in Churchill Lake. Nick and I ran through a variety of strokes, including draws, pries and jays. We got caught out in a little rain squall and became quite soaked, but were treated to a rainbow, afterward.

We cooked a dinner of Spanish rice & tacos. I gave the younger folk each a spork, which I had brought with me as gifts. Afterwards, I washed the dishes.

Dallas used her new Thermarest NeoAir air mattress that I gave her for the first time and pronounced it much more comfortable than the older model she had been using. My daughter Hannah talked me into to buying mine back in 2010; I’ve used it ever since.

Sunday, June 16, 2013. The day began sunny, with little morning fog. The ranger volunteered to drive our baggage about five miles, to Bissonette Bridge, so that we could run Chase rapids without fear of losing our gear if we capsized a boat. We packed up his truck and then launched our canoes into the river, just below the dam. We spent about a half hour practicing in the rapids by the dam. We then divided into two groups; Gigi and I canoed together and were in the second group. The river level was lower than yesterday (500 cfs); the ranger had reduced the rate of release from the spillway for our benefit. Even so, the rapids were quite challenging, for rocks were plentiful and hard to see. Gigi and I bounced off many and got stuck on a two or three, but got through without major mishap. Only one canoe out of our nine capsized, with Rob and David in it.

Bissonette Bridge is defunct; only the earthwork abutments remain. After we had all arrived, we loaded the gear and continued down river. The canoes were much heavier than before, of course, and consequently more difficult to handle. Gigi and I had one close call, when we got stuck on a rock that neither of us saw and took on water. Fortunately, I was able to pry us off with my foot.

The weather deteriorated later in the day with drizzle beginning to fall and the air turning quite chilly. We stopped at the Chisolm Brook campsite, where we had a lunch of egg salad and chicken salad sandwiches. We had initially planned to camp at Sandy Point, but when our second group arrived there the ranger told up that our first group had decided to push onward to another campsite, Sands. So we passed beneath a bridge and continued onward a few more miles, paddling a slow section of river called Long Lake. Gigi and I spotted a bald eagle, several loons and a kingfisher and saw several fish jump. The loons were calling and we heard many more we could not spot. Later, we learned that the first group had also sighted a moose, though we did not. The last bit was in heavy and chilly rain; Dallas and I were very cold when we finally reached the campsite, though Gigi claimed not to be. Dallas and I set up a tent and huddled in it for a half hour, changing into dry clothing and drinking hot chocolate.

Once warmed up, and in front of a bon fire, the evening was actually quite cheery, for we all relaxed beneath a large tarp strung over the picnic table and chatted with each other. We ate a dinner of gumbo & shrimp chowder and a desert of pineapple upside-down cake. We cooked the cake in our Dutch oven, a heavy, lidded cast iron pot which is heated by coals, paced both below and on the lid. It was quite delicious, and a nice reward for getting through such a tough day.

Monday, June 17, 2013. Heavy rain fell during the night, but tapered off by morning. Judging from footprints on the beach, a moose walked right by our camp during the night. We ate a breakfast of leftover gumbo and hot coffee. Some rain was still falling, but intermittently, so we were able to pack up without getting drenched. Dallas and I paddled together today. We passed numerous Cedar trees, growing on the river bank. We finished paddling Long Lake, portaging around the remains of a dam at its end. This dam was of the earthen variety but is now breached, though some of the wooden cribwork remains in the gap, presenting very dangerous obstacles. We had lunch at Long Lake Dam campsite, on the east side of what remains of the dam. We sighted more bald eagles and loons, as well Common Merganser, a smallish duck with a crested, rust-red head. We had lunch at the Sweeney Brook campsite. The last part of the paddle, after passing under a wooden bridge, was by low mashland. We heard Bull Frogs, and saw Red-wing Blackbirds, a Yellow Warbler and a Yellow Swallowtail Butterfly. The afternoon had cleared somewhat and some sun was shining when we reached the Inlet campsite, on another wide spot called Round Pond.

I set up my Goal Zero Nomad 7 solar panel system in order to recharge the batteries in my two cameras. The sun was pretty low in the sky, and the shadows were shifting, so keeping it in sunlight required considerable attention. Nevertheless, between that evening and the following morning I succeeded in charging both cameras. We ate a dinner of hotdogs; hamburgers, sausages, potato packets and brownies (made in the Dutch oven, with a fork accidentally imbedded). We had a little rain just before sunset, but it resulted in a beautiful rainbow that spanned the whole sky across the lake and that lasted at least ten minutes. Kenan caught a few fish. Dallas went swimming (if briefly). In the late evening we sang songs, accompanied by our musicians: Joel on the mandolin, Bryan on the guitar and Rob on the ukulele. (Amazingly, all three of these instruments survived the trip). Bryan had written for us a theme song, “The Cover of the LL Bean”, using the tune of "The Cover of Rolling Stone", the 1973 Shel Silverstein hit and substituting the phrase “Allagash paddlers” for the original’s “big rock singers”.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013. The sunrise was clear, but clouds developed during the early morning. Kathy and I paddled together today. While still on shore, we spotted a moose in the shallow water around an island in the lake, and after launching, paddled over to take a look. We soon sighted a second moose, apart from the first, but also standing in the water. We got close enough to make out their features, but they ran into the bushes before we had a really good look. We then paddled across Round Pond and then onto a narrow section of the Allagash. The current speeded up after leaving the pond, and we began to make very good time. We spotted another moose, a cow that waded right across the Allagash in front of us, affording us a very good view. We also spotted several Bald Eagles, as well as Canada Geese, Loons and Red-wing Blackbirds.

We stopped at the Croquet Brook campsite for breakfast. This site had a field of beautiful wildflowers, some red, others yellow. A little later we stopped at Cumliffe Depot to view the old, rusting engines that have been abandoned in the woods there. In addition to two reasonably intact engines, the ground is littered with numerous rusting metal fragments, including engine blocks, gears and chains. We met two kayakers from Massachusetts at this stop.

We continued down-river stopping at Michaud Farm for lunch. In addition to a campsite, this site has a ranger station and a well. Unfortunately, the ranger was away and the well was broken. The lack of water proved a problem, for we had hoped to fill up our containers there. Instead, we would have to filter river water, a process that is quite time consuming. We ate lunch at this site and chatted with the kayakers, who had also pulled ashore. They had been doing the whole Maine section of the Northern Forest Canoe Trail, of which the Allagash is but one small part, and were subsisting off a much humbler cuisine than ours. We gave them some of our apples. The afternoon turned sunny and the paddling was very pleasant.

We took out at the portage and campground above Allagash Falls. This 40 foot high waterfall is unnavigable and is bypassed by a half-mile long trail. After unloading the boats and bringing our gear to campsites #2 and #4, I went to view the falls. I first took the portage trail down to the beach below the falls and walked along the rocks at the river’s edge upstream, until I could see the falls. The rock here is shale, in contrast to the sandstone at the landing, so I suppose that the falls are lithologically controlled. The falls are very impressive, a foamy tumble of water spilling through a narrow chasm. I then walked halfway up the portage trail and took a side trail to an overlook at the top of the falls. I could see that, in addition to the main falls, water also flowed through two subsidiary channels: a small once near the overlook separated from the main falls by a large pillar of rock, and a larger one on the far side that seemed to flow around an island.

Returning to camp, we prepared dinner of jambalaya (using kielbasa as the meat). A bit of rain fell but then the sky turned clear. We cooked an apple crisp for dinner in the Dutch oven.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013. We stayed at the Allagash Falls campsite all day. The morning was exceptionally clear and I spent some time just after sunrise viewing the falls. I then cooked the group a luxurious breakfast of pancakes, served with maple syrup, cheese omelets, bacon and hash browns, made to order. We also cooked up an apple pie in the Dutch oven, both for breakfast and afternoon snacks. Except for helping to portage the canoes to the lower beach, I spent the day resting. Some of the other folk played with the canoes in the rapids below the falls, or paddled them to the island so that they could view the falls from the other side. A quarter-mile downstream of the falls, the water was shallow and calm, so the canoes could easily be paddled back to the beach. While I was on the lower beach, two rangers drove up in a motorized canoe. They were from the Michaud Farm station, and had been out mowing grass at the many campgrounds. A couple of other canoeists, from Telluride CO, came through on a portage. In the evening, we cooked a dinner of spaghetti and sausage and made another apple crisp. Later, we sang songs around the campfire, accompanied by our musicians. The weather stayed nice all day, though some clouds developed in the late afternoon.

Thursday, June 20, 2013. I arose early and made coffee. The day was beautifully clear. We all packed up camp and finished portaging all our gear. Each of us wound up making four or five trips before it was all piled up in the canoes. We first paddled across the river to a rock outcrop on the far shore that afforded an excellent view of the falls, and took a group photo there. We then started our final day of paddling. Gigi, Bryan and I paddled together, with me taking the stern. The current was fairly strong and we negotiated a couple of sections of minor rapids. We stopped at the Big Brook East campsite for breakfast. We reached our take out, White Birch Landing in Allagash town at about 12:30 PM. We met up again with the couple from Telluride, who as we found out, were waiting for us to return a paddle we had inadvertently taken the day before.

As we had hoped, our vans were waiting for us. We first stopped for a snack at Joe’s Country Store, along Rt 161east of Allagash town. I purchased a whoopee pie and a Diet Pepsi. A little later we had a proper lunch at a picnic table at Ft. Kent State Historic Site, on the Fish River near it confluence with the St John’s. This site features a large wooden blockhouse, built in the 1839 during the so called Aroostook War (a boundary dispute between the US and British-controlled Canada). The site also had an information cabin staffed by the local Boy Scouts and displaying their numerous awards and trophies. Several Scouts were busy repainting the fort’s cannon.

We then drove to Baxter State Park, looping way back to I95 to its south and coming back north through Millinocket. We arrived at about 6:30 PM and camped at the Foster Field group campsite, off of the park’s Tote Road. Carolyn and Katie Bumatay, and Shari, Catherine, Diana and Martin Estes, and Donna and Steve, joined up (though several of them stayed in a different campsite, owing to our group site being at capacity). I walked around the area, finding a beautiful wetland across the road with a splendid view of Doubletop Mountain. Matt and I drove to Nesowadnehunk Campground, to a spring by a bridge along the Nesowadnehunk Stream, where we refilled our water containers in preparation for tomorrow’s hike. I was glad to have learned about this spring during Vadim Levin and my 2010 visit to the park, for sites with potable water are rare here. The drive along the slow (20 mph) Tote Road was a long one – Matt compared it to driving to Canada - and the path to the spring is completely unmarked, so whole business came across as a bit mysterious. After filling up with twenty gallons of spring water, we purchased a $3 bundle of firewood at the nearby ranger station and headed back. By the time we returned, Shari had cooked us a dinner of tacos. The weather was nice; mostly sunny with some clouds & wind.

Friday, June 21, 2013, Midsummer Day. Today we climbed Mt Katahdin (elevation 5,268 ft). It is more of a plateau than a mountain, with very steep sides but a rather broad and flat summit area. The elevation of the trailheads is less than a thousand feet, so the mountain, while not so tall in absolute terms, is nevertheless a strenuous climb. We arose early, had a quick breakfast and organized into several small groups. Mine was Dallas, Kathy and myself and our route was to ascend via the Abol Trail (blazed in Blue) and descend via the Hunt Trail (blazed in white and concurrent with the Appalachian Trail, AT). The other small groups either did this route, too, or reversed it.

We signed in at the Abol Trailhead at 7:05 AM. The weather was mostly clear. Vadim Levin and I hiked the Abol Trail as far as the plateau back in 2010 and I remembered it fairly well. The first part is a gentle rise through tall woods, with the trail gradually becoming steeper and rockier. The second part is up a gravely trail past granite ledges surrounded by small trees. I like this part best, because the trees and rocks are pretty and the views to the surrounding lowlands are excellent. The third part is an endless set of informal switchbacks up a largely unvegetated scree slope. It is grueling but not especially challenging. The fourth part is through a boulder field of tumbled angular blocks. It’s grueling and tough, but relatively short, ending abruptly at the plateau. The last part (which was new to me) is across the plateau and up onto the small ridge that includes the summit.

Gigi passed us as we were ascending through the fourth section, the boulder field. We were taking our time. Kathy and Dallas, who are a foot shorter than me, were finding some of the rock faces difficult. We spent five minutes climbing one steep five-foot high rock face, only to find we could have avoided it had we noticed a path in a nook a few yards to our right. We waited at the edge of the plateau for Bryan’s group, which included Gigi, to all arrive. We then pushed on to the summit, passing a boggy section called Thoreau Spring on the way. This last section of the trail was more tedious than I had hoped, for the ground is very uneven. I arrived at the summit, with its sign and cairn, at 12:00, the climb taking a bit less than five hours to go 3.8 miles.

All our small groups met at the summit, a total of 22 people. The youngest was Catherine, who is eight, the oldest Gigi, who is seventy-four. From the summit we could see the Knife Edge, an east-trending arête that is a continuation of the summit ridge and that hosts a hiking trail. To the north and well below us is the South Basin, a wooded area that includes Chimney Pond. I ate some salami and drank some of my two liters of water while admiring this view. Dallas, Kathy and I then headed back, this time taking the Hunt Trail.

We passed numerous patches of wild flowers as we walked back across the plateau, some purple and some yellow-white. We then began a steep descent along the spine of a sharp ridge. It was a pile of huge, sharp and angular boulders, similar to those in the fourth section of Abol, but much longer. A rain squall began as we descended this first section of the trail. I donned my rain coat and took it off a few minutes later after it had passed by. Whether the Hunt Trail is actually tougher than Abol is debatable, but certainly it is much more exposed and gives the impression of having many precipitous drop-offs. Furthermore, the trail has many dips that, especially for first-time users like us, appeared from a distance to be quite a bit worse than they actually were. Our descent was slow and methodical. Donna and Steve passed us during in the first section. We descended at least two other steep sections, just as hard as the first, but made of boulders that were somewhat rounder. The last section included a six-foot high scarp to which several metal handholds had been added. I set up for Dallas an additional piece of webbing, making a final foothold, so that she could negotiate it. The view from the ridge into the valley of Katahdin Stream to its north was fantastic, a smooth wooded valley with substantial peaks on the opposing side. Most of the ridge we were descending was exposed, yet a few sections, though they wound between boulders, were beneath a canopy of short trees. These enclosed sections provided relief from the precipitous nature of the rest of the trail.

We finally reached the forest, yet the trail was still steep and slow, though not as slow as the higher, exposed sections. The trail is in a well-worn rut that is shared by streams, and therefore rather wet. We were all pretty tired. I had run out of both water and patience by the time I reached Katahdin Stream Falls. The trail there is a stone staircase; we, with our tired legs, negotiated it carefully. I viewed the top of the falls from an overlook along the trail, but was too tired to search for a view of the whole thing. Bryan’s group, which included Gigi, Matt and Katie, caught up to us as we neared the footbridge over the Katahdin Stream. Gigi, bless her, gave me the last of her water. Our two groups walked the final mile of the trail together, me whistling marching songs. The trail parallels the stream here, though on a wooded ridge a hundre3d feet of so above it. This last section of this 5.6 mile long trail has few rocks and a gentle slope, so we negotiated it quickly. We arrived at the trailhead at Katahdin Stream Campground at 7:10 PM; the whole hike had taken us twelve hours. The drivers of the two vans had switched keys at the summit, so we arrived back at Foster Field after just a few minutes of driving.

While we climbed Mt Katahdin, Shari, David, Erin, Diana and Martin hiked up the Owl, a trek of about 7.5 miles.

Shari cooked us a dinner of chili and pasta Alfredo. We were all happy to have completed the hike, but pretty exhausted, too.

Saturday, June 22, 2013. We packed up in the early morning. I managed to take a brief hike over to the wetland to view it and Doubletop in the morning sun. We then drove to Millinocket, and stopped briefly at the Irving gas station and convenience store, where I bought a breakfast sandwich and a Diet Coke. We then drove straight back to Rob and Shari's house in Sidney ME, where we unloaded the canoes. We then drove on to Harpswell ME, Dallas and I now in our own car. The weather in Harpwell was beautiful. Lilacs were still blooming. We unloaded all our gear onto a tarp next to the Estes Cottage and sorted it out to its proper owners.

Maude and Ed Abbott, Paul Estes, Ruthie and Harold Weeks, Rob Porter and Dana Carson came by for a visit. Today was the opening night of the Auburn Colony and Rob and Dana soon left for that, but the rest stayed and joined us for dinner. We enjoyed lobsters and pasta Alfredo on the lawn. Rain started to fall in the evening.

After dinner, Bryan gave souvenir hats to all the younger members of the Allagash Trip and cited their many contributions to the expedition. He gave one to Catherine, too, in recognition to her being the youngest of the Katahdin climbers. I read Thoreau’s description of Mt Katahdin from The Maine Woods, and we all thanked Bryan and his brother David, who could not attend, for organizing the trip.

Sunday, June 23, 2013. Dallas and I spent the night at her and Pam’s cottage, called Seahaven, in the Auburn Colony. Heavy but intermittent rain was falling when we awoke. We joined the folk remaining at the Estes Cottage for breakfast and then packed and headed back to New York. We arrived back home in Tappan NY at about 4:30 PM.