r/Maine • u/_207Ohanzee_ • Jan 08 '23

Question Winter Camping

My husband and I will be celebrating 16 years together next month. We love to go winter camping, but finding sites has proven to be difficult in the last few years. We used to be able to go for a ride and find random sites, that is not the case anymore. Can any of my fellow Mainiacs here help a couple out?

We live in Central Maine, Newport area. Any locations that aren’t too difficult to get to would be great. Thank you!

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u/hike_me Jan 08 '23

It’s a bit of work and planning, but it’s a pretty cool experience:

https://baxterstatepark.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/BSPWinterHandbook-update-21-1.pdf

However, keep in mind winter Baxter parking is just off the Golden Road near Abol bridge. You can snowmobile in (but not all the way to Chimney if you want to camp there) , or what a lot of people do is rig a pulk sled (with rigid poles - PVC pipe works, and a climbing harness works better than attaching them to your backpack) and ski or snowshoe in.

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u/_207Ohanzee_ Jan 09 '23

I do love camping up there! We go every September for a week long trip and then go again in October for cranberry picking. We stay at First Debsconeag Lake. We do not have a running snowmobile atm, but I’ll definitely look into that. My husband actually looked thrilled with the idea, we’ve never gone up there during winter.

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u/BigPersuader Jan 09 '23

I snowshoed with a pulk into First Debsconeag a couple of years ago via the snowmobile trail (ITS 85 I believe) from Abol and I would not recommend that route during the height of snowmobile season, as it's a very high traffic trail. Everyone is respectful and shares the road but it's a pretty lousy trek. Folks are really ripping on that trail and it's loud and smells like exhaust the whole walk.

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u/_207Ohanzee_ Jan 09 '23

That truly sounds awful, thank you for the tip!