How dangerous is Mt. Katahdin?

First of all you're worried about the wrong mountain ;the mountain that you should be worried about is the long above timberline traverse of the Presidentials because the weather be really nasty up there.

As far as Mt.Katahdin goes :If it's possible for a man to love a mountain then this man absolutley loves Mt.Katahdin.

I have hiked every trail that goes to summit on it except for the short stretch of AT called the Hunt Trail which I'm saving for the end of [at last ] this year's thru-hike

Rumor has it that the the Hunt Trail do get a little vertical in spots But once you get past the nasty spot the trail flattens out and it's a nice jog across Tableland to Baxter Peak

One other important thing to know is that unlike the above timberline traverses of the Franconia & Presidential ranges or even the crawl thru Mahoosuc(sp?) Notch you are doing the hike to Baxter Peak w/o full pack on

Almost all AT thru -hikers leave their thru-hiking packs at Katahdin Stream CG and take the day packs that friends or family brought them to summit.[usually thru-hikers have friends and family meet them in Baxter to help celebrate their achievement and also to give them a ride home]

You probably already know this that because of weather the Park Rangers at Baxter SP can and do close the mountain to climbing possibly for days on end and since you have a firm absolutley must finish date of October 15 to summit Katahdin ,you really have to plan to get there a couple of days early.

It's not unheard of in the world of AT thu-hikers for NOBO hikers to realize somewhere in NH/VT that they can't possibly summit Katahdin by 10/15 so what the do is leave the Trail go to Baxter SP ,summit Katahdin and then complete the Trail as SOBO hikers

Enjoy the hike

Climbing Mt Katahdin

If you can hike the A.T. from Georgia to Maine, by the time you get to Mt. Katahdin, you will NOT have any problems hiking up Mt. Katahdin.

I thru hiked the A.T in 5 months and have been up Katahdin 5 times. .

(there are records of 80 year old people and blind people climbing Katahdin.). By the way, the rugged part is/ are the White Mountians in New Hampshire.

Mr D about covered it. My Mom's family are from Maine and all my summers growing up where spent in "Katahdin Country." I love that mountain. I only climbed it once when I was 16. It was a good hard day hike up and back in one day. The only real danger is the weather, which can change and turn trecherous in minutes.

A friend of mine set out to hike the AT and started in early spring at the foot of Mt. K. The rangers wouldn't let him climb the mountain. They said it was too early in the season. He hiked all the way to Georgia turned around and headed back north. He got back to the base of Mt. K in the late fall and the rangers wouldn't let him climb as it was too late in the season. All that way up and back and his name isn't in the book.

I did Katahdin at 13... it wasn't that hard.