This post will be photo heavy. Sorry (or you’re welcome, depending on your take) in advance.
 
I awoke around 2 AM to torrential rain pouring down, each drop making that soothing sound on the hardshell tent’s molded roof. By the time we got up the next morning the campsite was absolutely soaked and the air had a chill that was unexpected for mid-August in New England. Throwing on a jacket and my trusty trail runner footwear I climbed down the ladder from the Jeep’s roof and faced the day. Others in the camp were also waking up, noises and voices growing in that familiar way that campsites come to life every morning. 

The plan for the day wasn’t overly drawn out… a handful of options had been presented in the pre-trip itinerary, and over breakfast we chose to hike the nearby Allagash Mountain. Tents and stoves were packed up and put away as Bob’s kids ran around with the dogs, and by 09h30 we were rolling out towards our next adventure. The trailhead itself was located just a few miles down a narrow dirt road that strategically began directly across the road from our Round Pond campsite. Dani and I lead the way in the Trailhawk as the four other vehicles fell in line behind us, tall wet grass sliding underneath the vehicle’s skid plates as we drove through the woods, our surroundings eerily dark and vividly green as a result of the overcast skies above. Parking just shy of a wide metal gate in a makeshift lot where the fire road ended, we gathered up backpacks and water bottles before beginning the hike. Shaun wasn’t feeling well, and hunkered down in their teardrop trailer with a handheld radio to sleep while the rest of the group began down the trail.
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​ ​Allagash Mountain stands 1,770-feet tall and features a thousand feet of elevation gain during its ascent. Round trip the route was in the ballpark of 5 miles, and the summit would feature an old fire tower facilitating views of the entire region. Claude and Ben led the way with Bob and Jessica in tow, while Jenny, Dani, Brendan and I brought up the back. The trail started off relatively level down the remainder of the gated fire road before running straight into the backyard of the otherwise undiscoverable Ranger Station at Allagash Lake, nestled into the woods with gorgeous views of the lake’s waters. From there we turned back into the forest and began the upwards climb, gradual at first before becoming a steep final pitch that left us scrambling up wet rocks and grabbing at tree trunks to maintain balance before emerging to a cleared summit. 

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The Allagash Mountain fire tower stood proudly atop the mountain, reminding me of dozens of peaks with the same adornments that were strewn throughout the Appalachian Trail. A strong breeze was moving clouds above us and the morning sun had burned off most of the fog while we were climbing. As the group wandered around, took photos, and enjoyed the view, Brendan and I climbed the narrow ladder up the fire tower itself to see what was inside. Squeezing through a narrow door hinged to the floor of the structure we found old topographical maps, a tiny stove, and what appeared to be an old telegraph/morse code key (I may be wildly wrong, but it truly appeared to be such a device!). I snapped some photos as Brendan consulted the topo map and pointed out at Canada to our west and Katahdin to our south, then we carefully descended the ladder back down to the rocky surface of the summit.
 
Wedging my camera into a crevice of granite I was able to snap a group photo before we headed back down the mountain. The initial descent was even more difficult than climbing up, with wet rocks and fallen leaves making for less than ideal conditions and sketchy steps forward. The group took just over an hour to get down, having paused briefly for a few slips and falls, and found Shaun drinking a cider in his camp chair next to their Jeep. 
 

​​Our drive from the makeshift parking lot to our anticipated campsite at Wadleigh Beach was only supposed to be 11 miles. Rolling out through the fire trail we turned back onto the wider and more maintained roads, increasing our speed and taking in the scenery and warm afternoon air. Dani and I were leading the way when out of nowhere a young moose darted across the road a few hundred feet in front of us. Before I could reach for the Ham radio to call it in to the rest of the group behind us, the huge animal had disappeared into the woods on the other side of the road. I came to a full stop, anticipating another one or two to follow across the road, but unfortunately none appeared.
 
A half hour or so later we arrived at the campsite that Brendan and I had chosen months prior, only to find it happily occupied by a few vehicles with a handful of people down by the lake. We pulled the vehicles off the side of the road, constantly aware of the possibility for a fully loaded logging truck to come flying down the road at any given moment, and laid out our paper maps across the hood of Jenny’s Jeep in search of a new place to spend the night.

 Lucky for us after inadvertently splitting up, dead ends and u-turns down decades old overgrown trails, and some sketchy radio communications, we all arrived at a quiet campsite nestled right alongside Saint Francis Lake. Dinner was family style taco night, a crowd favorite and pretty much trip tradition at this point, and was followed by smores over the campfire. The night rolled on as a handful of people went to bed, a few of us staying up late drinking bourbon under a vast and brilliant starry sky while Freebird and other instantly recognizable rock songs played on into the night.
 

Having packed the last of our gear into the Jeep the night before our departure, we had no reason to rush around the house the morning we left for Maine. With the temperatures climbing into the mid-80s and a good amount of humidity blanketed over Boston, we did a final inventory check and pulled out of the driveway around 09h30. The dash-mounted iPad had GPS coordinates put in for Millinocket, Maine, located some 290 miles north; from there we’d switch over to Gaia, our backcountry navigation app, and make our way off-pavement to our first night’s campsite just south of the North Maine Woods Telos Checkpoint.
 
The highway miles were easy, and the Jeep rolled along smoothly. We had just mounted our new Wildpeak AT3W tires a few weeks prior thanks to a partnership with Falken Tire from Rancho Cucamonga, CA, and I was interested to see how our gas mileage would compare to the factory tires. On top of the Jeep was our brand new hard-shell roof top tent - a 10" tall roof mounted shell that expands to almost 40" tall at campsites allowing us to sleep on the top of the Jeep. Our sleeping bag, pillows, and sleeping clothes are stored in it as we travel, and it collapses back down in just a few minutes when we're ready to move on. Also freshly installed on the front end of the Jeep was Chief Products' Lower Front Guard, a skid plate that replaced the plastic bumper from the factory to add protection from rocks and trees as we adventure through the woods. The Grand Cherokee had all three of these products installed in the last month and here we were, headed into the woods, excited to see how they all performed. 
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From Boston to Millinoket we averaged 21 miles per gallon, a number I was pleased with given the equipment load we were carrying. The town and roads were very familiar to me and brought a smile to my face and great deal of memories to my mind. As we slowed to the local speed limits I used every opportunity to point out to Dani places I remembered from the last days of my Appalachian Trail adventure four years prior. We drove through the sleepy town in search of a last snack from civilization before continuing down the final maintained road we’d see for days, our sights set way out of town far beyond where the pavement ended.
 
Our final stop was at an old service station/convenience store a few miles outside of town where a gas pump, antiquated by modern standards, rolled its analog dials counting out gallons of fuel at a glacial pace. Writing down the digits behind the pump’s glass, I carried the information inside and paid the attendant while Dani perused the store. Heading out again we traveled down Baxter State Park Road for another fifteen or so minutes before splitting from the dissipating pavement and breathing a sigh of relief as we rolled onto roads comprised entirely of dirt for the first time in the trip.
 
We passed the Abol Bridge Campground & Store, a place where I rested for an hour or two after exiting the Hundred Mile Wilderness during my 2014 Appalachian Trail thru-hike before heading on to Katahdin’s finish line, and continued on Golden Road for a long while. I stopped to fly the drone and capture some footage of Katahdin and the Nesowadnehunk Deadwater, a river flowing out from the Ripogenus Lake just west of where we stood.  
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Turning onto Telos Road a few miles from Harrington Pond Camp where we’d spend the night, I was able to reach Bob on his handheld radio. Our 2m Ham radio setup in the Jeep has an incredible range but hearing back from lesser powered handheld units can be a little more difficult in thickly wooded areas. He reported back that the campsite we’d chosen was a perfect spot for the night and directed us to its exact location. An open clearing nestled up along Harrington Pond, the area would easily fit our group’s four vehicles and two trailers once everyone had arrived. Dani and I found a good spot for the WK2 and I got to work setting up the roof top tent while she set up our base camp gear.
 
The Sweeneys arrived shortly thereafter, and the group cooked meals while I got some drone footage over the lake as the sun set. We sat around a campfire until 21h00 when Brendan’s voice came through on the radio proclaiming he was just a few minutes away but would need help finding the nearly invisible turnoff from the main route to access the campsite. I met him on Telos Road with my radio and a flashlight and helped him squeeze his Jeep and trailer down the narrow road, the final vehicle and driver to join our North Maine Woods adventure.
 
With nine people sitting around a campfire and two dogs playing in the clearing around us, we discussed the days ahead. As the last logs burned down and only the glow of embers (and Bob’s multi-color rope lighting) remained, people retreated to their roof top tents and trailers for the night, excited for the trip that lay ahead of us past the Telos Checkpoint and deep into the North Maine Woods.
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​First off, I’m a year overdue in writing this. That said, better late than never, so here we go.
 
The North Maine Woods is an incredibly unique place consisting of more than 3.2 million acres of privately-owned land abundant with trees, rivers, and almost entirely undeveloped land, located 100 miles north of Bangor and some 6 hours north of Boston. Wikipedia describes it as “a thinly populated region is overseen by a combination of private individual and private industrial owners and state government agencies, divided into 155 unincorporated townships within the NMW area.” and almost enthusiastically notes, “There are no towns or paved roads.” As reference for anyone who followed along with my 2014 Appalachian Trail thru-hike, the southern end of the Woods borders the edges of Baxter State Park.
 
Last August our Jeep/overland club got together for a five-day trip through Maine’s Allagash Wilderness and the aforementioned North Woods as our annual summer trip. A lot of the group are recurring faces from our 2017 QB-5 Overland trip, including myself and Dani, Brendan, his dog Jackson, Bob, Jessica, their boys and dog Niko, and Shaun and Jenny. All together we had two Jeep JKU Wranglers and two Jeep WK2 Grand Cherokees, two roof top tents and two teardrop trailers. It’s a group that travels well together and this trip was no exception to our adventures in years past.
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Brendan (back row, second from left) and I worked over the course of a few weeks drawing up a route, referencing data and maps from this group’s 2016 trip through some of the same regions. For those that have never heard of, visited, or planned a trip through this remote section of Maine, it’s unlike anywhere else in the US. With no established towns the areas are instead divided into a grid and labeled by location on a horizontal and vertical axis. For example, one of our campsites might be located in an area called T3R10, or further northeast at T12R15. Once we established where possible campsites were, we’d plot out exact GPS points and then begin stringing trails and roads together to create a route.
 
Having enough data compiled for a 5-day, 4-night adventure through one of the most remote places in America, we then turned to mapping gas stations, hospitals, and general “SHTF” waypoints in the event of an emergency. As far as the North Maine Woods goes, you’re basically on your own shy of a MedFlight chopper. Fuel, food, and first aid must all be carried on-board the vehicle, and redundant supplies for parts and troubleshooting are all on a bring-what-you-need basis.  The route spanned a respectable 800 miles (including the drive to/from home) and gave us 3.5 days inside the Allagash Wilderness to explore, hike, swim, and relax.  
 
With the maps digitized and the details detailed, it was just an inpatient waiting game until our date of departure.