WAY down in the heart of the Maine woods there rises a mountain that is in truth a chieftain among peaks. To be sure it is not the biggest thing in mountains, not even in the East. Mount Washington and several of its brethren in the White Hills are greater in stature, and they in turn are juniors to many a summit among the mountains of North Carolina. Yet it is certainly to Maine that we must turn for the most imposing mountain east of the Rockies. Even the In­dians of the Penobscot recognized its dignity when they christened it Ketté-Adene  — the preeminent. Nor were white men any less impressed from the day when the mountain came within their horizon, and, adopting the Abenaki name, it became, and still remains, Ktaadn  —  the prince of the Appalachians.

But who in New England knows Ktaadn? Relatively few, even among the mountaineer­ing enthusiasts, have seen it other than from afar. Thousands of summer vacationists know the canoe routes of Maine to a few hundred who have ever set foot upon the serrated crest of that State's great mountain. If Ktaadn were in Switzerland, or even in our own Western country, it is safe to say that it would long ago have been promi­nently on the map, and actively boomed as a tourist attraction. That is not saying that Ktaadn is a Matterhorn or a Mount Rainier, but in its way it is just as distinguished a pile, and it is in no sense extravagant to claim for it charms that are superior to many a mountain that is a celebrity in some other locality.

Ktaadn has been so neglected, even by its own State, that it would almost seem as if the people cherished a belief in their inherited tradition of Pamola's curse, and dreaded to draw upon themselves the dis­pleasure of that evil genius of the heights by so much as a threatened invasion of her soli­tudes. Small wonder, perhaps, if this indeed be so, for when did the mountain receive with hospitality any early visitor of distinction?

Charles Turner, Jr., the Boston surveyor, who, with a party of Bangor friends, made the first known ascent in 1804, must have caught the old demon napping, for fair weather favored them. But she was dis­tinctly on her guard when such eminent pub­licity men as Edward Everett Hale, Thoreau, and Theodore Winthrop attempted to make copy out of her retreat, wrapping the summit in a sulking cloud on each of these occasions, and thwarting their explorative inclinations.

Be the reasons what they may, the fact remains, that Ktaadn's glories are but little better known to-day than they were in those days, along about the middle of the last cen­tury. It remains to-day as it was even in 1860 when Theodore Winthrop termed it "the best mountain in the wildest wild to be had on this side the continent." To some its very remoteness and inaccessibility are added charms. One may not ride gayly by auto­mobile to the base of this mountain. It is only gained by toil. From the south and west the customary approach is a sporty progress by canoe, with a two-days camping-hike at the end. The alternatives from this side are a twenty-five-mile tramp in over the Millinocket tote road from the railroad on the south, or an automobile drive from the southern end of Moosehead Lake to Ripogenus Dam at the foot of Chesuncook Lake, followed by an all-day walk on the river trail to the board­ing-camps on Sourdnahunk Stream. From the east one may, indeed, ride on a four-wheeled rig to within a dozen miles of the summit. It is safe to say, however, that those final miles afoot under a heavy pack would be easier than the twenty-odd awheel along the lumber road.

Once upon a time Professor Hamlin, ge­ologist of Harvard College, wrote enthusias­tically of the day when a railroad should be built from Bangor to within a three-days drive of the mountain on the east. That was in 1879. When that happy day should arrive he foresaw good carriage roads leading to Ktaadn Lake, a hotel upon its shore, with the mountain in full view, a bridle-path thence to another hostelry which should nes­tle beside the little Chimney Pond in the Great Basin, only three miles or less by the trail, and directly beneath the peak itself. To-day two railroads run out from Bangor along that side, one a whole day's wagon-journey nearer to the mountain than the point that Professor Hamlin had in hopes. There are in truth roads thence to Ktaadn Lake, but not by any courtesy could they be regarded as tame enough for carriages, and the hotels are still in the dream stage. Is it to be wondered at, then, that there are scarcely two hundred visitors to the mountain from all sides in any year, according to the most generous estimates?

But the way is open to the tramper by tote road and trail from the railroad at Stacy-vile to the summit, and for those who do not dread a camping-pack it is a pleasant two or three days' jaunt. Not many, if on pleasure bent, would care to push through from railroad to mountain in a single day. It has been done, but twenty-seven north­ern Maine miles constitute a thoroughly full day's toil for one on foot, especially when toting upward of thirty-five pounds dead weight. Happily such a forced march is not necessary. Plenty of good camping-places lie along the way, and there are also two boarding-camps, conveniently located, where lodging can be had.

It was about 1846 that the first trail was cut through to the mountain from the eastern settlements. That was built by "Parson "Keep, the pioneer preacher of the Aroostook, a man who appreciated that this vast granite bulk was of value to his State as an attraction of great merit, and even the Legislature of that day seemed to recognize this also, for it granted the parson two hundred acres of wild land on the shore of Ktaadn Lake in com­pensation for his labors. For a decade or more that trail was kept open and a good deal used, several women having been known to make the ascent that way soon after it was built.

In the early seventies lumbering opera­tions obliterated this landmark, but a new trail to the Great Basin was almost immedi­ately laid out, a feature that the Keep Trail, singularly enough, avoided, its route being to the southeast side. That, too, disappeared, though it was restored, and partly relocated, by the Appalachian Mountain Club in 1897', only to be once more lost, this time through disuse. Then came Dr. George G. Kennedy's party of botanical explorers from Boston in 1900, who cut yet another route to the Basin, where they built a tidy cabin, but this suf­fered no better fate than any of the rest, for Nature swiftly heals all such scars if man but withdraws for a bit. Three years after Dr. Kennedy's party a local guide named Rogers cut a trail from Sandy Stream Pond to the Basin, and it was partly on those lines that the Appalachian Club's path of 1916 was cut, the hope being that, with the greatly increased interest in walking as a pastime, it might be kept open, thus affording a through route across the mountain to and from the West Branch and Moosehead Lake.

From the south and west Ktaadn bulks large, and its ascent from those sides is a long, hard grind. From the east its propor­tions are no less vast, but in form it is far more striking. Although Turner thought the mountain unapproachable from the east, owing to its steepness, it is in fact the easi­est route, with only one sharp pitch of about eight hundred feet in elevation, to surmount the Basin walls, and that far from difficult. On that side the beauty of the mountain first reveals itself at the brink of the Stacyville plateau. From that angle its southernmost summits group themselves into a steep crater-indented cone, which might well lead one to think that it was a volcano that stood off there before him. From the brink of the plateau, where the fields of the Stacyville Plantation end, an unbroken hardwood for­est stretches out to the East Branch of the Penobscot.

For six miles the tote road and trail lead across this old flood plain, to emerge at Lunk­soos ferry with its pretty clearing sloping down to the river, and a cluster of most at­tractive modern log houses, where one may tarry for the night, or longer if his fancy pleases. Here again the great mountain greets the visitor, looming up, still cone-shaped, above the long Lunksoos ridge just across the stream. The next stage on the road to the Basin is a twelve-mile tramp, five of it by a very good wagon-road across the Lunksoos ridge to the Wissataquoik valley, at which point trampers abandon the tote road, and, crossing on the dam, follow a trail for seven miles through the forest to Ktaadn Lake. It is there, where the trail bursts out from the stifling brush of an old burn at the outlet of the lake, that the mountain first appears *in its entirety. It is still some ten miles dis­tant, but across the lake it spreads its nine miles of length, and rears its craggy, slide-scarred sides, unobstructed by any interven­ing heights. Halfway along the southern shore of the lake is located another boarding-camp,  —  not always open in summer, how­ever, as it is a hunting resort,  —  where a second night may be spent. For one in good tramping condition, and not too heavily bur­dened as to pack, it is easily possible to make the eighteen miles from Stacyville to the lake in a single day.

The route from the lake. to the Basin is a steady rise, for the first mile or so along an old lumber road, a pleasant forest way, but ere long it enters one of those ghastly burns where flies and sun can do their worst in a warm day. Even that four-mile desert of rock and brush has its compensations, with its frequent glimpses of the ever-nearing moun­tain ahead, and not far beyond lies Sandy Stream Pond with its refreshing water and green timber. Once more the mountain steps forth across the pond to show that it is still there, near enough now so that the configu­ration of the deep basins in its sides are clearly seen. Up to this point, except for the trifling rise of some three hundred feet to cross the Lunksoos ridge, there is no climbing, al­though the lift is steady from the Wissata­quoik, seven hundred feet above the sea, to eleven hundred feet at Ktaadn Lake, and fifteen hundred feet at Sandy Stream Pond. At the pond the lumber road is left and the Appala­chian Club trail of 1916 begins, a perceptible upgrade, rising another fifteen hundred feet in about four miles, which lands one on the richly forested floor of the Great Basin itself, the chief scenic glory of the mountain.

Here, in Indian days at least, dwelt Pam­ola, a harsh and vengeful being, with head of human form surmounting the body of a gi­gantic eagle. When the winds swirl and howl there to-day, as they do even in the midst of summer, and especially when the rock slides start to pour from the surrounding cliffs, as they do under the hand of the ever-undermining elements, it is not difficult to hear the whirring wings and the angry mut­terings as they sounded to the terrified Abe­naki huntsmen. To the white man who is fond of the big things in primeval nature, that great amphitheater, gouged out of the mountain's very head by an ancient glacier, is as satisfying in its wildness, form, and color as many a feature of the Rockies or the Sierra that may be bigger.

Standing on the shore of the charming little Chimney Pond, that lies almost in the center of the four square miles of forested basin floor, and gazing up at the well-nigh vertical walls of rock that sweep around on the east, south, and west, pricking the clouds two thousand feet above with their sharp summits, serrated crests, and Gothic buttresses, one understands why Professor Hitchcock likened them to the peaks and ridges of the Andes, and why another saw here a similarity to Sierran heights and Colorado canyons. It is ridiculously stupendous when one considers that this is a mountain which lacks more than a thousand feet of Mount Washington's height, its topmost rocks ly­ing somewhat less than a mile above the ocean's tide.

No finer mountain camp-ground could be imagined than that beside the clear, cool water of Chimney Pond, with its encircling beds of alpine flowers, sheltered by the dense spruce and balsam forest, and looking out upon that inspiring picture, a picture that is the photographer's despair. It defies the angle of his lens, and he cannot fail to realize how important an element in the composition is the rich coloring of the cliffs, a feature that the ordinary camera cannot compass. To be sure, it is not the high col­oring of the Yellowstone Canyon, nor that of the Grand Canyon, nor yet quite so intense as that of the peaks of Glacier Na­tional Park, but those regions were favored above many with other materials than gran­ite in their structure. Geologists tell us that Ktaadn is a granitic outburst from beneath a wide area of sandstone and slate, its up­permost seven hundred feet being pinkish in character, the main body gray. But those walls of so-called "gray" rock, that lift the eye for the first fifteen hundred feet above the pond, are anything but Quaker­ish in tone, stained, in places, with iron to a deep Falernian hue, and again widely en­crusted with lichens that give the olive-green tint of an ancient bronze. Ktaadn's Basin is, indeed, a subject worthy of any painter.

To the geologist and the botanist the mountain is a fascinating field, and the story of its rocks, as told by Hitchcock,. Hamlin, and Tarr, and that of its flora, as recorded in the files of "Rhodora," make interesting reading even for one who merely dabbles in those realms. For the geologist the great interest lies in the pronounced gla­cial records that surround it on all sides.

For the botanist its Arctic flora is the prime attraction, a flora unique in some respects, including many plants not found on the slopes of Mount Washington, among them a little saxifrage that is unknown elsewhere south of extreme Arctic America.

For the mountain-lover here is a play­ground that will keep him active and con­tent for days together, and for his purposes there is no base equal to a camp in the Great Basin. Every part of the mountain is easily accessible thence in a day's hike. Two trails now run from Basin to summit, the easy and usual route being up the eight-­hundred-foot rock slide to the Saddle which connects the North and South Mountains. There is also the sportier way up along the slope of Pamola Peak, and across the knife-edged Crest to the main summits of the South Mountain. That Pamola ascent might not furnish many thrills for the alpinist, but for an ordinary Eastern mountain tramper the. passage of the knife-edge is a safely sporty experience, though it is certainly not a place for giddy heads, nor for steady ones, for that matter, in the face of a blow. And as for stunts to satisfy the nerviest of cliff-climbers there are enough and to spare on the walls of the Basin itself, including the as­cent of the Pamola Chimney, in the climb­ing of which one may readily imperil his neck, and all his limbs, at one and the same time.

Then there is the interesting Table Land, that broad expanse of open bench, fully a square mile in extent, spreading westward behind the North and South Mountains at the elevation of the Saddle, and which in days gone by was a favorite pasture-ground of herds of caribou. This Table Land is it­self capable of furnishing an interesting day, with the views into the ravines and basins on the north and west. Nor are the almost unexplored northerly basins too remote to be visited from a camp at Chimney Pond in one long day's expedition.

Naturally the view from such a mountain as Ktaadn is an extended and an interesting one, standing as it does relatively alone in the center of such a vast area of largely level wilderness. Ktaadn, however, is by no means a lonely mountain, as is generally supposed, for it is associated with quite a little family of eminences that are distinctly above the hill class. Traveler Mountain, a few miles to the north, is the second highest in the State, and Turner Mountain, its nearest neighbor on the east, and the Sourdnahunk Mountains that flank it on the west, are probably all of thirty-five hundred feet in elevation.

But Ktaadn sufficiently dominates the land­scape, and commands a horizon that reaches from the Canadian border on the north, around to Mount Desert Island on the south. On a bright day it seems as if every lake in Maine was heliographing to you as you stand on the summit of Ktaadn. Turner, indeed, had the courage to count some of the lakes as he saw them on that first ascent in 1804, and recorded sixty-three in view on the Penobscot watershed alone. Fine as is the distant prospect from the mountain, Theodore Winthrop was right when he said that "Ktaadn's self is finer than what Ktaadn sees," and he did not know the half of Ktaadn's beauties, for he climbed it from the west and in a fog. In short, Ktaadn is a worth-while mountain about which no one has ever bragged with suf­ficient extravagance to half express its su­perlativeness.

Choosing a fine day it is an easy matter to cross from the Great Basin to the West Branch valley, even visiting the main South Peak en route. Two trails lead down from the Table Land toward the West Branch. The more direct route follows the Abol Slide toward the south, connecting with the Millinocket tote road at a point about twenty miles west from the railroad, and close to the confluence of Abol Stream and the West Branch. The Hunt Trail leads across the southern end of the Table Land and down a westerly spur through a chaotic field of massive boulders. A mile or more below this labyrinth is a camping-site, but if one has a boarding-camp in view there are two, five and six miles below, on Daisy and Kid­ney Ponds, in the valley of the Sourdnahunk Stream.

None but the most expert woodsmen will undertake to thread those trails across Ktaadn without a guide. Good maps of the region do not exist, and the trails are wholly de­void of those helpful signs, that, in more-frequented regions, help to keep the ten­derfoot in the none too straight though nar­row path. Blazed trees even are far from numerous, and the blazes are often dim, while the mazes of ancient logging roads criss-cross that wide country to the utter confusion of the uninitiated. Given a single week of good weather, and the entire pas­sage of the mountain can easily be made from railroad to railroad, one of the most inspiring experiences afforded in all New England.

 
* The mileage and elapsed tune are cumulative in each of the above stages, distance and time being figured from the point last named in the previous line. The times here given are sufficient for leisurely walking with moderate-sized packs.

In descending on the western and south­western sides, the railroad at Millinocket may be reached by walking east (twelve hours) on the tote road referred to above. Lodging halfway at Grant Brook. It is also possible to walk out via Moosehead Lake by following the river trail up the West Branch from the mouth of Sourdnahunk Stream to Ripogenus Dam, ten miles, walk­ing time about five hours. From Ripogenus to steamboat at Lily Bay landing on Moose­head it is thirty miles via gravel road. This may be covered by automobile by telephon­ing from Ripogenus. Walkers by this route may find lodging at Roach Pond, twenty-two miles from Ripogenus. The usual route out from the Sourdnahunk valley to the rail­road is by canoe, eighteen miles to Ambeji­jis Lake, and steamer thence thirteen miles to the railroad at Norcross.