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I'm glad it works for you but man I am peeved that they instituted it in the katahdin woods and waters national monument area of the east branch of the penobscot in maine. People have been just heading down that waterway on trips since time immemorial and it's generally not a problem finding a site, but if it's particularly busy you would pull up and ask someone if they don't mind sharing. I've never turned a person down and I never will, but also I've never paid for a campsite on a river. I feel like paying to book a site just changes the dynamic of a shared waterway so much.

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Don't Maine residents have free access to all of Katahdin ? I thought the reservation system was only needed for out of state people.

ahepp is correct, there is Baxter State Park which -- is actually not quite a state park and is instead administered as a quasi-independent concern that adheres to the goals of the original land grant to the state, which is to provide an accessible wilderness area to the people of Maine -- and there is katahdin woods and waters national monument which falls under the purview of the national park service. The katahdin woods and waters national monument is the result of the founder of Burts Bees buying up swaths of privately owned land over the years via a corporation and then ultimately donating that land to the national park service. While this seems like a good thing in general it's complicated by Mainers somewhat unique relationship to recreation on private land and the concept up here of "traditional use" versus a kind of chain reaction of regulated formal use practices that were triggered by the national monument designation.

The two parks border each other in areas and share some waterways.

Also to clarify Mainers have to reserve and pay for camping spots in Baxter, it just costs less for us. Day use is free. It's a very popular and beautiful place. In my opinion Baxter is the crown jewel of Maine and I'm happy for all of the tourists to fight it out over Acadia.

Katahdin is truly a hidden gem. The crowning knife's edge traverse is till date the most rewarding hike of my life, and that's counting more towering west coast mountains.

I kinda love how inconvenient it was to get there. Really felt like it filtered out the typical tourist or even casual hikers.

I believe there is a distinction here between Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, and Baxter State Park. Last I was aware, the latter contains the mountain itself.

I was not aware of that. Thanks for clarifying.

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