Well, my severely blistered brain has finally healed up some after hiking in the atrocious heat and humidity last weekend, and I am back to my usual state of semi-abnormality.

Given that, as my cranium cooling continues, I have just gotten to downloading the photos of my excursion to the uncrowded northern end of Baxter State Park at South Branch Pond.

I don't know about you, but I've probably made more than a hundred trips to the southern part of Baxter, through the Togue Pond gate and thence northeast to Roaring Brook or northwest to Abol or Katahdin Stream.

But I can count only 4 or 5 trips through the Matagamon gate up north.

I fully expect that ratio will change dramatically in the coming years.

Because the north end of the park, dotted as it is with pearls of lakes and ponds and small and medium size mountains that pack a scenic punch, there's next to nobody up there.

Sure, South Branch Pond Campground where we camped in a shoreside lean-to had its share of people there, but the trails and waters in and around it were virtually empty.

Solitude reigned.

And we reveled in it.

While in our kayaks on the waters of Upper and Lower South Branch Ponds anyway.

On the trail, however, solitude and beauty aside, we sweated and suffered. Up and down South Branch and Black Cat Mountains.

And then the monstrous 10-mile Traveler Circuit the next day. Steeply up the Peak of the Ridges, up Traveler Mountain, across Traveler Ridge, and finally bagging North Traveler. Then a plunge back to the valley floor and the life-saving waters of the pond.

It was too hot too continue. Too buggy to stop. A day for heatstroke if there ever was one. But we did it. And it was good. A traverse that rivals any in Maine for mountain scenery and ruggedness.

Try it. You'll see. But please, wait for cooler weather.

So that's the scoop. The northern end of Baxter State Park is where it's at. Away from the summer hoards who all seem to want to congregate around Katahdin. With all due respect to our beloved mountain (and to Governor Baxter himself), let them have it for now.

There's plenty of wilderness to be explored elsewhere in the park. And I'm hot on its trail now...

South Branch Pond Campground is a mere half hour from the Matagamon gate into northern Baxter.

Cozy lean-tos line the shore above South Branch Pond.

Evening light on South Branch Pond.

On the trail to Black Cat Mtn.

Upper South Branch Pond.

A deer on the Pogy Notch Trail.

A cliff's eye view of Upper South Branch Pond.

The pretty but deadly amanita mushroom.

Atop Traveller Mountain with Peak of the Ridges beyond.

In a forest of dwarf birches on North Traveller Mtn.

A rocky spur on North Traveller.

After a thunderstorm on South Branch Pond.

Have you visited the northern reaches of Baxter State Park? What are your favorites hikes up that way?