Russell Pond Campground bears repeat visit

If you’re a backpacker who’s been searching for a destination where the crowds are thin, the scenery is spectacular and the wildlife viewing is plentiful, then I’ve found the place for you. It’s Russell Pond Campground in the middle of Baxter State Park.

Don’t be fooled by the name. It’s a hike-in-only campground, unreachable by car. In fact, it’s 15 miles from the nearest parking lot in one direction and more than seven miles and nine miles in two other directions, and who knows how far in the fourth. On June 30, I spent an overnight there and found a place that has been virtually unchanged for more than 100 years.

I started hiking from the trailhead at Roaring Brook Campground, where I left the truck, at 6:30 Saturday morning down the Russell Pond Trail toward my destination under a bright, summer sky. More than 180 species of birds are found in Baxter State Park and it sounded like they all were singing at once to greet a new day. After a little less than a mile, I arrived at Sandy Stream Pond, a known moose hangout, where the evening before I had watched four moose, including one cow moose with a calf, feeding. There were no moose this early in the morning, so I took in the view of Mount Katahdin from the shore, then hiked on.

After about 3 miles, the Russell Pond Trail veers left and the Wassataquoik Stream Trail begins to the right. I had been up both trails before, and in low water conditions the Wassataquoik Stream Trail is flatter in contour and easier to hike, and I’ll take easier every time. It is fairly flat, but there are several small ups and downs past small tributaries, which trickle into the Whidden Ponds outlet brook paralleling the trail over the next 3 miles. After another mile or so, the trail took me past several stands of red pine between the cliffs on Russell Mountain on my left and the shadow of North Turner Mountain on my right. In another 40 minutes and 2 miles, I was at the ford at Wassataquoik Stream.

There was a wilderness camp group of adolescents who had just crossed the ford and were putting their boots on when I arrived. They were only the second group of people I’d seen in the little more than two-hour hike. They had started from the north end of the park and had spent the night at Russell Pond and were on their way out. Shortly after crossing the stream, in about a mile, I came to a place on the map called New City.

New City is a ghost town, but not like ghost towns out West with false-front buildings and tumbleweed. There are no buildings now, just a large field of chest-high ferns and grass where once stood a lumbering operation. In the late 1800s, until a fire in 1906 destroyed it, the community was populated by up to 1,000 woods workers and people who supplied them. A plow beside the trail looks like it was left there in a hurry. Other pieces of iron tools are scattered around.

After a 7-mile hike, by 9:30 I had reached Russell Pond and the sign directing me to my tent site. I walked around the pond to the ranger cabin to show my reservation and sign in for the night. The park ranger, Tom Lohnes, greeted me with a few instructions on where the spring is located and, since I told him I was planning on fishing, how the fish were biting. Over the course of that day and evening, he and I talked a lot. He knew the area extensively after having spent a number of summers in the campground as the ranger. He told me where to find the canoe rack, dock, life jackets and paddles. The rate for canoes was $1 an hour, paid after you’re done.

Tom checked me in and I left for Turner Deadwater nearby, to try my luck at catching a few trout. After an hour or so of having my fly turn up only a few small fish, I headed back to the campground for a midday siesta. It must have been 90 degrees, so I crawled into the tent for the shade and some relief from the bugs. I wasn’t in the tent for long when the sky turned dark, thunder rattled above and torrential rain started pouring down. It lasted for 40 minutes or so, then the sun came out.

There were only four other groups of campers in the campground at the various lean-tos, tent site and bunkhouse so it seemed pretty uncrowded. Some sites were still open and available. By the time I woke up from my nap, it was time to go for a hike of about half a mile to Deep Pond, where the campground has another canoe. I floated around there for a while until the sky darkened again and another thunderstorm cracked the sky. I made fast tracks for the tent. While I was zipping the door shut, a deer approached from about 20 feet away. It came toward me, absolutely unafraid. I took a picture when it got to within 8 feet or so and it quietly left.

It rained all night, but by Sunday morning it looked like the thunderstorms had dissipated. I chose another way out by going on a loop farther down Wassataquoik Stream. That’s one of the best things about this campground. Four major trails converge here, as well as some minor ones. Russell Pond is surrounded by other features also. In its vicinity are four mountains, (some trail-less for bushwacking, some with trails), several trout ponds and miles of trails connecting them all.

I always come home from a long hike with some lesson that nature has taught me. I recall a quote from Henry David Thoreau, to the effect that he learned more from spending one night in the woods than from a lifetime in the city. I came home from Russell Pond with this lesson. The experience of going to a special place deep in the woods always bears a repeat visit.

Brad Viles is an avid hiker and Appalachian Trail maintainer.