Moosehead Lake

The lake runs about sixty-five kilometres in the middle of Maine's North Woods, most of the surrounding land commercial timberland rather than public park, crossed by private logging roads that are open to the public but where loaded trucks have right of way and the etiquette is not optional. Mount Kineo rises straight out of the water in a cliff about two hundred metres high; the rhyolite there was quarried by Indigenous peoples for tools and traded over a very wide area. The Katahdin, a steamboat launched in 1914, still runs cruises from Greenville. Moose are common in the surrounding bogs and logging cuts, most reliably at dawn and dusk in late spring when they come to the roadside pools.

What you actually see

• Sixty-five kilometres of lake - the largest in Maine.
• Mount Kineo's cliff - a rhyolite face straight out of the water.
• The 1914 steamboat Katahdin - still cruising from Greenville.
• Moose in the bogs and cuts - best at dawn and dusk in spring.

When to go

June to October; late May and June for moose. A full day or several.

Honest expectations

Logging roads are private, unpaved and give trucks priority - drive accordingly. Moose sightings are not guaranteed. Black flies in June are severe. Services around the lake are limited outside Greenville.

Nearby

Baxter State Park is north-east; the Appalachian Trail crosses north of the lake.