20 pics and darn little babbling about a very relaxing, three night visit to an easy to reach, quiet part of Maine’s Baxter State Park. After two nights at Chimney Pond and a visit to Baxter and Hamlin peaks we were ready to relax on some flat trails.

Sandy Stream, mid crossing via frame capture from video. Seems the bridge, like many others in the park, did not survive the floods.

This was our first real, boots off water crossing in some time. Since we weren’t in any hurry it was fun. On the way out, racing for cheeseburgers it was a bit more trouble 😉

Martin Ponds LT is on a small rise just off the first of the two ponds along the trail. We have seen a moose here before, but no luck this year.

Lots of amazing views though. This site has one of the best views of the sunset behind the mountains.

Those are bugs, not dragons you see against the sky. We had lots of bugs, birds and frogs, but no loons. Such a peaceful spot it was hard to leave the next day.

We got over it though! North Katahdin Lake LT hasn’t got the same feeling to the campsite, but it does have a pretty darn nice front yard.

The views of the peaks and bowls of the mountains are fantastic from out on the water.

Pretty nice from the shore as well!

Pardon me while I play with my zoom 🙂 Can you tell I carried the heavy camera on this trip?

Our lunch spot, on a rock, on an island, at the far end of the lake, was perfect. We had the entire lake to ourselves and tried not to interrupt the silence too much.

This got us making some “oooooooo” noises though! We’d seen this eagle near the island earlier in the day from a distance. Then we spotted him again while paddling back towards camp.

Again I was happy I had the heavy camera. This was taken with big zoom from the back of a bobbing canoe.

Again, the camera gets all the credit heh. This was taken by zooming through 50 yards of trees while I was sitting in camp. Well, I guess I get some credit for the manual focus. Poor computer saw nothing but trees 🙂

Last night of the first week meant we had to put the canoe away. Just as well because we realized the newly arrived neighbors at the far end of the lake were the sort you could hear from a distance.

No matter, we had plans to leave early the next day. A small window of time to pick up supplies and the little one from camp for a family zero day at a cabin. We’ll pick up the Baxter extravaganza with the final, six day section on the Wassataquoik Lake Trail in a few days…maybe. Might be on trail next week 🙂