Baxter State Park in the age of extreme weather
by Aaron Megquier, Executive Director of Friends of Baxter State Park
On October 14 and 15, 2022, Chimney Pond received 13.1 inches of rain in about 30 hours during a single storm event. This is about 1/3 of the average annual precipitation for nearby Millinocket. Even by the standards of Katahdin, which is well-known for its wild weather, this was a truly exceptional amount of rain.
I was camping at Wassataquoik Lake Island with my father and daughter on the night of October 13. Knowing that heavy rain was forecast and that Wassataquoik Stream would rise quickly, we changed our Russell Pond reservations for October 14 and 15 to the Wassataquoik Stream lean-tos to avoid getting stuck. The rain started in earnest at about 5:00 am on October 14. When we forded Wassataquoik Stream around 11:00 am, it had only risen about a foot from the day before. It was still an easy crossing, with the water just grazing the bottom of our backpacks. A few hours later, the water had come up about three more feet, and crossing safely would have been impossible.
By nightfall, the stream had risen several more feet and was completely unrecognizable. The valley was full of water, and even the largest boulders in the stream had disappeared under roaring whitewater. The stream had jumped its banks and was flowing through the woods below our site, but it was still at least three vertical feet below our campsite. At this point, Wassataquoik Stream was already the highest we had seen it in about 45 years of annual trips to the area, including many other major rain events. The rain was tapering off, and we went to sleep expecting that the stream would not rise much further.
I woke up around 3:00am to the sound of rushing water close by, and the deep booms of logs being tumbled against trees and boulders. The stream had risen the final three feet to our campsite and was lapping at the fire pit. Deep, fast water was flowing just few inches from the back corner of the lean-to.
I headed over to check on the folks staying at lean-to #1, which is a bit closer to water level. I was wading through knee-deep water long before I reached their site. I found them awake and fully packed for a quick departure if necessary. Their entire campsite was submerged. By the light of my headlamp, I could see entire trees and other flood debris rushing by just beyond their submerged fire pit. They were scared and had lost some gear, but were otherwise okay. They reported that the water had reached the bottom of the lean-to sleeping platform before it started receding about an hour before. I waded back to our lean-to, and we stayed awake for a while until we were sure the water was falling, and then got a few more hours of sleep.
At the height of the flood around 2:00am on Saturday morning, miles of the Wassataquoik Stream Trail were under water. My daughter and I hiked several miles of the trail on Saturday to check out conditions. We ended up wading much of the way, with flood debris knee to waist high in the woods through many sections. When we hiked out on Sunday, the trail was passable but heavily eroded in spots. A 100-foot section was buried under several feet of debris, and many bog bridges had been washed away. My daughter found a dead brook trout in the middle of the trail.
The water line from the flood is clearly visible on the side of the lean-to, several feet above the ground.
The Park has been working hard to make its infrastructure more resilient in the face of such extreme rainfall. Much of this work has focused on culverts and stream crossings along roads. This work is very expensive and requires skilled contractors, excellent planning, and road closures, but it is essential to the Park’s future.
Trail damage is often harder and more time-consuming to repair. Due to remoteness and the manual nature of most trail work, it can take months or years to repair the damage that occurs in a single day, on a single trail. This is bad enough if an extreme event happens once in ten years, or once in five. What happens if these events occur with greater frequency, and over a broader area?
Park staff are still working to understand the extent of the October 14 flood damage on more than 220 miles of trails, but there are indications that it was significant and widespread. Amazingly, another flooding event occurred just a few days later and caused additional damage. We know that climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme rainfall events. It was a very humbling experience to see first-hand what that looks like.