Wendy Weiger is a physician who left the halls of academe for the wilds of northern Maine. The Maine Woods have become her home, step by step and paddle stroke by paddle stroke, as she’s journeyed thousands of miles up mountains and down rivers—often traveling solo—in all seasons. She lives in Greenville, at the southern tip of Moosehead Lake, and she has a camp on First Roach Pond, about ten miles from the midpoint of the most remote section of the Appalachian Trail, known as the Hundred Mile Wilderness.
Wendy hopes to help others find healing outdoors—as she has done—and to inspire them to work toward healing our planet. She completed her first book, Earth Miracle: Why We Need Nature and Nature Needs Us, and is in the process of seeking an agent and publisher.
—Photos by NRCM member Wendy Weiger of Greenville, Maine
- Darren Carlton sits on the shore of First Roach Pond, watching the sun set over the flank of Number Four Mountain. He’s perched on a rock below my camp that we’ve dubbed “Moose Rock.” In spring and summer, when the pond is higher, just the tip of the rock shows above the water; it resembles the hunched shoulders of a feeding moose.
- I took this photo of a "mackerel sky" above Mount Kineo from the frozen surface of Moosehead Lake during a snowshoeing excursion, February 1, 2014. ("Mackerel sky" refers to a resemblance to the markings on mackerels.)
- A view toward the west—from the shore of First Roach Pond, just below my camp—a minute past sunrise, 6:55 AM, February 6, 2015. The full moon was three days earlier, so on this morning the moon set in the west about an hour after the sun rose in the east. The temperature was minus 14 Fahrenheit.
- A view of my woods through ice crystals on a window of the outhouse at my camp on First Roach Pond.
- Moonset over the Saddle, viewed from Lower Basin Pond, Baxter State Park. I had climbed to Katahdin’s summit via the Saddle the day before.
- Guide Jim Albert on the summit of Mount Katahdin (South Peak and the Knife Edge are in the background). To me, the wintry summit seemed like a mystical otherworld, incredibly beautiful, but stark and perilous at the same time. As Thoreau observed in his essay “Ktaadn”, “Vast, Titanic, inhuman Nature….seems to say sternly, Why came ye here before your time. This ground is not prepared for you.”
- I followed my own tracks back down Borestone Mountain after a winter ascent of its west peak. I had the mountain to myself all day. Near the top, the trail was a bit dicey in spots. By the time I finally made it all the way down, a pink-champagne sunset glowed in the west; not far above, the waxing crescent moon shone brightly. A lovely end to a wonderful day.
- Sunset—through a haze of wind-driven snow—viewed from the shore of First Roach Pond just below my camp, February 16, 2014 at 4:53 PM. At this time of year, the days are growing noticeably longer—we’ve gained almost two hours of daylight since the Winter Solstice—and the sun sets a little farther north each day.
- Dawn colors over the White Cap range at 6:20 AM on February 18, 2014. The Hundred Mile Wilderness section of the Appalachian Trail runs along the ridgeline. As I stood on the shore of First Roach Pond, a raven croaked in the still air and a waning moon hung low in the western sky. The temperature was between 21 and 22 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.
- The 700-foot cliffs on the east side of Mount Kineo. Peregrine falcons build their nests here. Moosehead Lake reaches its greatest depth—almost 250 feet—near the base of the cliffs. Native Americans traveled to Kineo to collect rhyolite, a flint-like rock prized for tool-making.
- A view over Moosehead Lake from Lily Bay State Park, February 26, 2006
- Lynx tracks along Meadow Brook Road, Frenchtown Township, February 28, 2015. The lynx is a wildcat of North America’s boreal forests, currently protected under the federal Endangered Species Act.
- These tracks explain the lynx tracks shown in the previous photo: snowshoe hares are a lynx’s preferred food. [Meadow Brook Road, Frenchtown Township, February 28, 2015.]
- The view toward Katahdin from atop the fire tower on the summit of Number Four Mountain.
- Sunset colors over the massif of Number Four, Lily Bay, and Baker Mountains, viewed from the frozen surface of Moosehead Lake.
- Mount Katahdin reflected in Abol Stream, the boundary of Baxter State Park.
- The edible “fiddleheads” of emerging ostrich ferns (so called because they resemble the scroll at the top of a violin). [Found along the Saint John River near Fox Brook campsite, May 10, 2013.]
- Red maple in bloom, First Roach Pond peninsula, May 16, 2014, just six days after ice-out on neighboring Moosehead Lake. The woods were awakening to new life: the popples (aspens to folks "from away") had unfurled tender green leaves, maples were flowering, and the songs of returning warblers filled the air.
- Sunrise colors over Number Four Mountain reflected in First Roach Pond.
- This male Luna Moth visited our home in Greenville Junction on a sunny, warm, golden afternoon in mid-June 2005.
- The view on April 30, 2014 from Blair Hill across Moosehead Lake toward Big Moose Mountain. Moosehead Lake still had ten days to go before ice-out, though its frozen surface was gradually turning gray and soggy. The night before, I had heard the first quacking of wood frogs in the vernal pool below my yard in Greenville Junction. The start of the annual frog mating frenzy told me that spring, lingering ice notwithstanding, was well underway.
- Dutchman’s breeches blooming along the Saint John River near Fox Brook campsite.
- Pemaquid Point Lighthouse reflected in a tidal pool.
- The stairway climbing the tower of Pemaquid Point Lighthouse.
- July 12, 2014 was a lovely day for a ramble along the Appalachian Trail. I forded the West Branch of the Pleasant River and hiked through shady forest, then clambered down into the cool grotto where Gulf Hagas Brook tumbles through a slaty notch to form Screw Auger Falls. As I watched sunlight playing on a tree that grew by the brook below the falls, a haiku took shape in my mind: On a cedar trunk/Reflections from the water/Dappled light dances.
- Above treeline, and between layers of cloud: a view from the Appalachian Trail near the summit of The Horn, in the Saddleback Range.
- A nest on the ground in woods along the banks of the Piscataquis River. It was built by a female hermit thrush; it may have been her mate whose song I heard drifting overhead as I walked along. The hermit thrush’s song is my number one favorite of all bird songs; it brings to mind a flute meditation played by an angel.
- During a solo paddling trip, I took refuge from a series of three thunderstorms on this little island in Allagash Lake. My canoe is loaded with wood I collected for the evening fire at my campsite.
- Sunset over Allagash Lake, viewed from the water near Ledge Point.
- Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse (in Acadia National Park) reflected in a tide pool.
- Early morning along the shore below my camp: dawn colors over the White Cap range, mist on First Roach Pond. As I breathed the fresh coolness of the new day, a female common merganser swam by with eight chicks in tow, and the ghostly wail of a loon drifted over the water.
- Along the Appalachian Trail, near the summit of Little Baldpate: a rare specimen of Eastern Larch growing in the krummholz. Krummholz literally means “crooked wood” and refers to the scrub forest of bonsai-like trees that grow at treeline.
- The Destroying Angel: A deadly poisonous Amanita emerges from the forest floor along the Piscataquis River. The potent amatoxins in this mushroom block protein synthesis throughout the human body, resulting in liver and kidney failure, leading to coma and death. I love the wild, but I know I enter the woods on nature’s terms, not my own…the balance between life and death is always precarious for us mortal creatures.
- A raven atop Baxter Peak (the summit of Mount Katahdin) on September 2, 2014. There were a couple of ravens hovering around the peak, evidently awaiting handouts from climbers.
- Heading up the Saddle Slide on Mount Katahdin the morning of September 3, 2014. The day was bright and sunny, but very windy; I had heard that gusts up to 50 miles per hour were predicted for high, exposed areas. Climbing the slide, I was protected from the wind, but when I reached the top and stood on the Saddle between Baxter and Hamlin Peaks, it hit me in full force.
- A view from Katahdin’s Saddle looking toward the Knife Edge and Pamola on September 3, 2014. The alpine tundra in the foreground is bright with autumn colors.
- Sunset viewed from High Bank campsite on Telos Lake, Allagash Wilderness Waterway.
- Master Maine Guide Dan Pelletier poling down Stair Falls, a series of shallow ledge drops on the East Branch of the Penobscot River. Stair Falls lies along the boundary of the proposed Katahdin Woods and Waters National Park.
- Grand Pitch, one of several mandatory portages on the East Branch of the Penobscot River. This waterfall lies along the boundary of the proposed Katahdin Woods and Waters National Park.
- Maple tree and logging truck, Sias Hill Road north of Kokadjo, September 15, 2011.
- sitting in the bow of our canoe
- A view from the Appalachian Trail across White Cap’s summit dome to First Roach Pond and the Spencer Mountains, September 26, 2014. White Cap Mountain lies near the midpoint of the most remote section of the AT, known as the Hundred Mile Wilderness.
- The final approach to White Cap’s summit, heading southbound along the Appalachian Trail. White Cap Mountain lies near the midpoint of the most remote section of the AT, known as the Hundred Mile Wilderness.
- My mother summiting Borestone Mountain on October 2, 1998, when she was 73 years old. The steep rocky climb frightened her a bit, but her strong spirit of wonder and adventure kept her going nonetheless, all the way to the top...how I miss my favorite trail companion!
- Sugar maples, Eagle Rock trail, Big Moose Township, October 2, 2012.
- Indian Pond, Big Moose Township, October 3, 2012.
- Yellow birch and red maple, Intervale Brook, Frenchtown Township, October 3, 2014.
- First Roach Pond, October 5, 2013.
- Maple tree near the pump at my camp on First Roach Pond, October 5, 2013.
- View of Lake Onawa, Borestone and Barren Mountains from Onawa Trestle, October 13, 2013. The Maine Appalachian Trail Club claims that this remote bridge is the highest railroad trestle east of the Rockies.
- Mount Katahdin viewed from Abol Bridge. The West Branch of the Penobscot River flows in the foreground.
- A mother moose and her calf browsing on aquatic plants at Sandy Stream Pond in Baxter State Park. In the background is the Katahdin massif: Pamola stands on the left, Hamlin Peak on the right, with the Saddle in between.
- Dawn at Russell Pond in Baxter State Park, 6:53 AM, October 14, 2014.
- Autumn colors at Russell Pond in Baxter State Park. The golden trees along the shore are tamaracks (deciduous conifers).
- Tamaracks (deciduous conifers) near Halfway Rock, Chimney Pond Trail, Baxter State Park, October 16, 2014.
- The White Cap range, viewed from the shore below our camp on First Roach Pond on Thanksgiving morning 2011. The Hundred Mile Wilderness section of the Appalachian Trail runs along the ridgeline.
- Wind-sculpted ice on the shore of First Roach Pond the day after Thanksgiving 2013.
- The shore below our camp on First Roach Pond about 10 AM on Thanksgiving morning 2013. The wind was coming at me so forcefully that I had to lean forward just to stay upright, suggesting a wind speed in the range of 32-38 miles per hour. With wind chill factored in, the temperature was probably around 0 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Number Four Mountain, viewed from the shore below our camp on First Roach Pond on Thanksgiving morning 2011.
- Heading into winter: Walden Farm Road, Greenville, December 14, 2014.