Thoreau Day Trips
Available:
TRIP 1: Enjoy a paddling day trip based on Thoreau’s 1846 September trip to The Maine Woods: This journey will Put-in at Nevers Corner on the West Branch of the Penobscot River, guests will paddle the Penobscot River into the Debsconeag Dead water to a take out at either Little or Big Omaha Beach and enjoy a Riverside lunch along the West Branch provided by the River Drivers restaurant. This trip includes a portage, the Debsconeag Falls carry – named the “Oak Hall” carry by Thoreau. The native name for the falls and the lower dead water is “Katepsconegan“which can be translated as “carrying place” from which the present name, Debsconeag, is taken. The day trip also includes a short hike from 1st Debsconeag Lake to “The Ice Caves.” The Trip is guided by a registered Maine Guide. Canoe equipment and gear are provided by NEOC and canoe instruction can be provided also at the start of the trip if necessary. Cost $500 for 1-4 people, each additional +$99/per person. Call 800-766-7238 to book.
“The forenoon was a serene and placid on this wild stream in the woods, as we are apt to imagine that Sunday in summer usually is in Massachusetts. We were occasionally startled by the scream of a bald eagle, sailing over the stream in front of our bateau; or fish hawks, on whom he levies his contributions” Henry David Thoreau
TRIP 3: Based on Thoreau’s Trip to the Millinocket Region and “Ktaadn” in September of 1846: One Day Paddle on the West Branch of the Penobscot River, and the second day guests will hike Katahdin via either the Hunt trail or via Chimney Pond (as the Abol Trail is closed for Summer 2014). Cost $399 per person, 4 person minimum. Lodging can be booked separately at NEOC. Call 800-766-7238 to book.
Photo credit: Dennis Welsh for Katahdin Woods & Waters
Day 1: Paddle the West Branch with a registered Maine Guide putting in at Little or Big Omaha Beach into the Debsconeag Dead water, paddling through Passamagamet Lake and into Ambajejus Lake. This is what Thoreau had to say about Ambajejus Lake:
“Ambejijis, this quiet Sunday morning struck me as the most beautiful lake we had seen. It is said to be one of the deepest. We had the fairest view of Joe Merry, Double Top and Ktaadn, from its surface. The summit of the latter had a singularly flat, table land appearance, like a short highway, where a demigod might be let down to take a turn or two in an afternoon, to settle his dinner.”
Day 2: Climb Katahdin via either the Hunt Trail or Chimney Pond Trail with a Guide. This guided hike could take from 9 to 11 hours depending on your ability to negotiate terrain. Lunch and snacks will be provided by the award winning River Driver’s Restaurant and no doubt will be more delicious that the food enjoyed by Thoreau in 1846.
“In the morning after whetting our appetite on some raw pork, a wafer of hard bread and a dipper of condensed cloud or waterspout…I climbed alone over huge rocks, loosely poised, a mile or more, still edging toward the clouds; for though the day was clear elsewhere, the summit was concealed by mist. The mountain seemed a vast aggregation of loose rocks, as if sometime it had rained rocks, and they lay as they fell on the mountain sides…They were the raw materials of a planet dropped from an unseen quarry, which the vast chemistry of nature would anon work up, or work down, into the smiling and verdant plants and valleys of earth. This was an undone extremity of the globe; as in Lignite, we see coal in the process of formation…The tops of mountains are among the unfinished parts of the globe, whither it is a slight insult to the Gods to climb and pry into their secrets and try their effect on our humanity. Only daring and insolent men, perchance go there. Simple races as savages do not climb mountains – their tops are sacred and mysterious tracts never visited by them.”