Hiking in Maine: Explore the Schoodic Peninsula, for the Acadia less traveled

The Schoodic Peninsula is home to a remarkable landscape of dense spruce forests, jack pine woodlands, shrubby heaths, cobble beaches, granite headlands, deep harbors and rugged islands. Bounded by Frenchman Bay to the west, Gouldsboro Bay to the east and the Gulf of Maine along its southern margin, the peninsula is a true natural gem of Maine’s bold Downeast coastline....

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America’s Best and Most Beautiful Winter Hikes

From Colorado to Oregon to Maine, these incredible winter hiking trails offer beautiful views, wildlife-spotting opportunities, and fewer crowds. If you have a habit of stashing your hiking boots the moment cooler temperatures arrive, you’ve been missing out. In the winter, the nation’s best hiking trails clear out and you can walk for miles without seeing another soul....

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Maine town apologizes after criticizing anonymous hiker who fixed bridge along its trail

There’s a Maine town trying to identify the hiker who built a replacement bridge next to a collapsed one along a hiking trail on a popular 308-acre preserve. “When outside entities create trails and structures without notifying our department, that leads to confusion for hikers and others” using the Lowell Preserve, Windham town manager Barry Tibbetts posted on...

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Acadia National Park is introducing a timed reservation system for visitors

The only national park in all of New England, Acadia incorporates both coastline and mountains and has a remarkably diverse landscape. There are scenic lakes and ponds to discover too plus plenty of picnic spots. It’s the seventh most visited national park in the US with 3.5m visitors annually, and in order to cut down on traffic and reduce overcrowding, visitors...

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‘You’re all goats today:’ Maine farm opens up to human and goat hiking

Each winter, Karl Schatz and Margaret Hathaway, owners of Ten Apple Farm in Gray, Maine, host goat hikes on their 18-acre property. “When you hear me calling to the goats, I’m talking to everyone,” Ten Apple Farm owner Karl Schatz said before leading about a dozen keen hikers and snowshoers on a 1-mile hike through his property. “You’re all goats today, you’re all part...

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Is a Green Future Worth Spoiling the Appalachian Trail?

  A proposed hydropower transmission line in Maine would impact the AT, wildlife, recreation, and tourism. Is it worth it? The proposed project, known as New England Clean Energy Connect (NECEC), is a 145-mile transmission line winding down from the Canadian border through Maine’s forests, and would ferry hydroelectric energy from Canadian dams to the New...

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Accessible Hiking Trails To Check Out In Maine

Although some of us are still recovering from the winter or dreading another nor’easter, spring has officially started in Maine. As temperatures rise, many have already begun looking for a way to get outside and celebrate the outdoors. Luckily, Maine has no shortage of outdoor attractions, and many are accessible to those with limited mobility and people with...

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Maine trio completes Appalachian Trail’s remote 100-Mile Wilderness in winter

At the end of February, three Maine men set out on snowshoes to hike the 100-Mile Wilderness, the most remote section of the Appalachian Trail stretching about 100 miles from Monson to Baxter State Park. They completed the arduous journey, over mountains and across half-frozen streams, in nine days, a feat very few hikers accomplish in the winter. For February, the...

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Easier mountain hikes in Maine

You don’t always have to huff and puff for miles to reach a great view from the top of a mountain. In Maine, there are plenty of short hikes up small mountains and hills to vistas that may take you by surprise. There are all sorts of reasons you might be drawn to these shorter mountain hikes. Maybe you’re trying to introduce a kid to hiking. Maybe you’re just a beginner...

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New book explores family-friendly hiking in Maine

Where should you hike with the kids next? That’s the question a new hiking guide by Bangor Daily News outdoors columnist Aislinn Sarnacki seeks to answer. The recently released book “Family Friendly Hikes in Maine” features 35 easy hikes from across the state. And if anyone knows hiking here in Maine, it’s Sarnacki. She estimates she’s hiked 250 trails in Maine since she...

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Haunted hikes in Maine for spooky fun this Halloween

The state of Maine has long been known as a place of ghost stories and otherworldly happenings. Perhaps it’s the landscape that inspires such tales. What makes the state beautiful — it’s jagged coastline, fog-socked harbors, mossy woods and old quaint towns — can also appear spooky and ethereal. Or maybe — just maybe — Maine truly is a hotspot for the supernatural....

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A privy problem: Maine group races to replace outhouses on Appalachian Trail

Spiders fled from the outhouse as Craig Dickstein of Caratunk, a trail maintainer for the Maine Appalachian Trail Club, sliced through its back wall with a reciprocating saw on a recent Saturday, carving up and around the seat, then over to the side wall, which was covered with graffiti left by Appalachian Trail hikers. “The stuff of nightmares,” said Carrington Rhodes...

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Katahdin Woods & Waters National Monument Permanently Protects Mountains, Forests & Waters of North-Central Maine

On the eve of the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, President Obama has designated Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, the first national monument to preserve the landscape and honor the history and culture of Maine’s North Woods. The President’s use of the Antiquities Act to make this designation permanently protects 87,500 acres of lands donated...

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International Appalachian Trail seeks to reroute 52 miles of path in Maine

The International Appalachian Trail continues to draw hikers to northern Maine, offering a tour through varied landscapes and a connection to Canada and beyond. Trail enthusiasts celebrated some of the best of Aroostook County’s outdoors the weekend of May 7-8, 2016 at the International Appalachian Trail Maine Chapter’s annual conference in Presque Isle, sharing stories...

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Fields Pond preserve among Maine Audubon’s many gems

Fields Pond Audubon Center is a 192-acre sanctuary in rural Holden, a short drive southeast of Bangor in Penobscot County. The center is owned by Maine Audubon, one of the eight such properties. The Meadow Path leads to a summer boat launch on Fields Pond, the 85-acre central feature of the preserve. The Marsh Trail investigates the wetlands north of the modern visitor...

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A national park or a national monument? Maine North Woods groups shift focus

Unable to convince members of Maine’s congressional delegation to introduce legislation for a North Woods national park, supporters are now hoping President Obama will use his authority to designate a national monument as a step toward eventual park status. In June 1916, President Woodrow Wilson accepted the donation of roughly 6,000 acres on Mount Desert Island to...

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Wanted: Volunteers to adopt sections of Maine Appalachian Trail

With a hiking pole in one hand and pruning shears in the other, Ron Dobra picked his way along the Appalachian Trail, snipping overhanging branches and making note of eroding soil. For the past 20 some odd years, he has helped maintain the popular hiking trail, which spans from Georgia to Maine and is seeing more foot traffic each year. “The entire length of the AT —...

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It’s Worth the Trip: Land trusts provide great hiking sites

Land trusts are the underrated stars of Maine’s outdoor landscape. Nearly 90 nonprofit land trust organizations dot the state, from Kittery to Aroostook County. While state and national parks are much more visible and widely promoted, the network of land trusts holds some of Maine’s best hiking. This panoply of land trusts is aided greatly by the Maine Land Trust...

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Baxter State Park pushes back on rising number of Appalachian Trail ‘thru-hikers’

“Sputnik” had just emerged from the most remote stretch of the Appalachian Trail – 100 miles of Maine “wilderness” with no stores, towns or even paved roads – when he paused to consider a different ending to the life-changing trek he was about to complete. Behind him lay 2,170 miles worth of footsteps stretching from Georgia to this spot on Abol Bridge offering two...

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Hiking in Maine: Producing a wonderful guide for discovery

The Maine coast ranges more than 230 miles from Kittery to Lubec as the crow flies, but an incredible 3,500 miles when every nook and cranny, and some 3,000 islands are accounted for on the undulating margin along the Gulf of Maine between New Hampshire and Canada. The topography of the coast is as varied as could be, a natural museum of sandy beaches and rocky...

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Hiking in Maine: Whiskeag Trail is 5 miles of ‘signature achievement’

One of the longest hiking routes along the coast of Maine can be found within the densely populated boundaries of Bath. There the Whiskeag Trail traverses three conservation preserves and several municipally owned properties on its five-mile journey through the wooded outskirts of town, much of it along Whiskeag Creek. The trail is a project of Bath Trails, itself a...

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Hiking in Maine: Saco Beach Loop has history and an ocean vista

Ferry Beach State Park in Saco, Maine is a 117-acre gem in Maine’s state park system that features a nice stretch of oceanfront beach, a pleasant network of foot trails and some interesting history. Long before the advent of roads, a ferry crossing connecting Hills Beach and Camp Ellis at the mouth of the Saco River served early travelers along the beach from as far away...

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Walking in the footsteps of a pre-traitorous Benedict Arnold

In early October 1775, Gen. Benedict Arnold and a contingent of 1,100 American soldiers made the portage over the Great Carrying Place between the Kennebec River and the Dead River in Maine on their wilderness expedition to Quebec City. The lengthy and difficult portage greatly weakened Arnold’s army, which ultimately failed in its attempt to wrest control of the city...

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New Maine Topo Maps Feature National Scenic Trails

Newly released US Topo maps for Maine now feature segments of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail (A.T.). Several of the 715 new US Topo quadrangles for the state now display parts of the A.T. along with other improved data layers. “Located within a day’s drive of 2/3rds of the U.S. population and open year-around to all visitors, the Appalachian Trail is America’s...

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Hiking in Maine: Caribou Mountain offers a wonderful day hike

Route 113 weaves back and forth along the Maine–New Hampshire border between Fryeburg and Gilead for 30 miles, threading a route through some of the prettiest mountain country in New England. Between Stow and Route 2, the road slices through the White Mountain National Forest, where a bounty of foot trails leads deep into the wild and rugged country that characterizes...

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Restoring Acadia’s Historic Hiking Trails

Hiking Acadia is a pastime almost as old as the state of Maine itself. “People have been hiking Mt. Desert Island and these moutains since the mid-1800s,” said Gary Stellpflug, Trails Foreman at Acadia National Park. Between the 1890s and the 1930s some 130 miles of trails were cut in this park. But then… “Finances for the trails program dwindled over the course of the...

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Restoring Acadia’s Trails

By PORTER FOX for the NY Times A 120-foot white pine shaded what was left of the trail. The best indication of which way to walk was an auburn arc of fallen pine needles, bending to the right. Then a small clearing. Then flecks of blue filtering through the branches and the muted growl of the Atlantic meeting the shore of Mount Desert Island, in Maine. My guide,...

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