Whenever the state of Maine comes up in this newsletter, I almost always refer to the wealth of Maine woods, waters, and mountains beyond the coastline—wild places that most Maine visitors never lay eyes on. Hell, I’d imagine at least 30% of Maine’s annual crowds don’t realize that the Pine Tree State is the largest state in New England, by a considerably wide margin. At 35,385 square miles vast—practically double the size of New Hampshire and Vermont combined—Maine is a monster that contains multitudes.
And I think, in 2025, it’s about time that we paid a visit to a natural landmark in Maine that vividly illustrates the gargantuan scale of the state that some call “Vacationland.”
This place, which occasionally pops up in guidebooks and brochures, waits in the KI Jo-Mary Woods east of Moosehead Lake (a part of the notoriously rugged Hundred Mile Wilderness segment of the Appalachian Trail.) But you don’t have to haul a 40-pound backpack into the Maine woods for days to reach this landmark. Unless you’re setting off from Bangor or Augusta, it does require a bit of a drive; 5-ish hours from Boston, or a punishing 9 hours from New York. Either way, you’re looking at spending at least one night in the Moosehead area. And whatever lodge or motel you check into will be your basecamp, as you make for the hollowed and hallowed Grand Canyon of Maine.
