McAfee Knob may be the most visited and most photographed location on the Appalachian Trail. But for thru hikers, nowhere is more iconic than the old wooden sign on the summit of Mount Katahdin in Maine. At the trails northern terminus. Welcome to The Green Tunnel, a podcast on the history of the Appalachian Trail. My name is Mills Kelly, and I'm your host. Today, we bring you the final iconic locations episode in our show, and we've saved the best for last.
I made the summit sign for Katahdin three times and delivered it three times. It's about 42 inches wide. It's about 38 inches tall. And the first line of lettering is the word Katahdin. And the rest of it hasn't changed much. If you look at a picture of the first sign, Myron Avery put up there in 1933. We pretty much copied it and added a few mile ridges. One thing that's extraordinary about it is it only points in what direction does no biologist have anywhere else.
You just heard the voice of Lester Kenway, who began his career as a volunteer on the Appalachian Trail more than 50 years ago. He was describing the sign on the summit of Mount Katahdin which is the northern terminus of the AT. For northbound thru hikers. This is the sign they dream of day after day as they hike over 2000 miles from Georgia to Maine. And for day or section hikers getting to the top of Mount Katahdin from a nearby Trailhead is no easy feat, as
the elevation gain is around 4000 feet. During his five decades of volunteering, Lester has accumulated quite an AT resume, which helps to explain why he is a member of the Appalachian Trail museums Hall of Fame.
My first trip working on the trail was in 1972. With my school outing club a couple of years later, I was elected to the Board of Directors of the main Appalachian Trail club, and I served as a director and then a district manager. They made me vice president. I was president for 13 years. And concurrently. I was the chair of the trail crew committee for about 30 years. And my most recent project in my last project was raising funds to build what we
call the main trail center. Currently, I worked for Baxter State Park where Katahdin is.
It is safe to say Lester really knows the trails throughout this region of Maine. And while most hikers only summit Katahdin once Lester has a lot.
The trip from Chimney Pond Campground to the summit is 2600 feet of vertical. I would confess that when I worked with the park I did that trip over 200 times.
What long distance at hiker hasn't dreamed of reaching that sign on the summit of Katahdin at the end of their hike for northbound long distance hikers, either through hikers or section hikers. That sign on the summit of the mountain represents the end of their long and often difficult effort. I asked Lester, how he became responsible for making the iconic sign and to describe the process of building a new one.
One of my volunteer jobs with the club was that I was design coordinator. The big push in that was that the club relocated almost half of the trail in Maine to prepare for the acquisition program with the National Park Service. So 157 miles of trail was moved, all the campsites had to be recreated all the signs had to be done, we needed to replace the summit sign in 1989 and I just volunteered to do it. I knew what the site looked like. And I pretty much copied it and
updated it and created a paper pattern. So I could reproduce it may come out of white pine, which is a good material to work with. I take two three pieces of pine and I plane them and then I glue them edge to edge to make a panel and then I sanded it until it's leveled out and I covered the wood with carbon paper and then put the paper pattern over it and trace the letters which
transfers letters to the wood. I use a router to cut the letters by send it again and stain it and then paint the letters in. Well the sign itself probably weighs about 25 pounds. And I used to put on a pack frame and carry that up the sawhorse as we call it. The frame that holds a sign is made up of cedar four by four timbers, there's like 10 or 12 of them and carried up individually we assemble it on site.
Something most hikers don't know though, is that sawhorse style sign that Lester hauled up the mountain three times wasn't what the sign always looked like. The original version of the sign on the summit was pretty simple. It was installed by legendary ATC Chairman Myron Avery and several of his friends on the summit in 1933. Four years before the AT was completed from Mount Oglethorpe in Georgia, to Mount Katahdin.
It was a single piece of wood, maybe 20 inches wide and eight inches high stencil with black letters. I don't known how long it lasted. There was a period of time in the 1950s and 60s, where the Appalachian Mountain Club would send a crew to help with the trails on Katahdin. And they placed AMC style signs. There was still some in place when I started working there in 1978. The sign changed in the 1960s, club volunteer Steve Clark led the effort. And he was the one
that built the first saw horse frame. The first sign was made by Clyde Smith. That sign was put up in the 60s. And it was replaced in 1977 and 89, and 99 and 2009 and all those who are very similar.
We have a photograph of that original sign in our show notes. So you can see just how simple it was. When I didn't know until we spoke with Lester is that the placement of that signed by Avery and his buddies has an interesting history of its own.
Governor Baxter acquired to Katahdin area in 1931 in the park really wasn't formed. Avery and a group of people who was called the expedition of 1933. And the purpose was to scout the route of the trail. And they started to Katahdin in a located route for the trail to Bigelow Mountain, which is lower at 200 miles. And they simply went up there in plain sight and said, This is the with no authorization of any kind
That story gives you a sense for just how informal things were on the 80. In the 1930s. When the trail was being built, it's not that way any longer.
The sign we put up 2009 has been replaced again, but by the park, the park initiate a policy where the park would be the only entity that puts signs up. And the main Appalachian Trail club doesn't do that anymore. But when they replace it, they got a National Guard helicopter to bring it up.
I'm sure the leadership of Baxter State Park has good reasons for this change. But for me, having a helicopter bring in new versions of the sign is just not as much fun as thinking about Lester and his friends hoping to sign up from chimney pond campground once a decade. For North bound, long distance hikers reaching the Katahdin sign is a very emotional moment. To give you a sense for what that moment can
be like. We talked with 2022 through hiker Wendy Boller If you met Wendy on the trail, you would know her as serendipity.
Well, there was so much going into before I saw the sign, I'd seen the signs so many times in videos and pictures and in my mind, and coming up to the sign. I was still just so many emotions. And also, I was so in the moment as well that all the emotions weren't available as well. I was so focused on trying to be in the moment and enjoy the experience on this last day
of the hike. There are a lot of people there. And one of the things that I really took in was just to how friendly and supportive and polite everyone was being and letting each other have a chance at the sign. When it was my moment I was with my family and we all took turns and some of us, including myself, kind of thought out. What are we going to do when we get there? What pose do we want to have at the sign. I stood on top of the sign and lifted my arms and triumph.
As important as the sign on the summit is 280 hikers. The mountain itself is much more important to the Penobscot people of Maine. For 11,000 years before it became the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail, Mount Katahdin has been a holy place of the Penobscot Nation, who named it Katahdian which literally means the greatest mountain. Katahdin represents the place where life and
enlightenment begin. And they did not summit the mountain because the summit was ruled by the Spirit being Pamala who would devour them if they trespassed on the summit. Since Mount Katahdin is still an important spiritual place for this Penobscot people today AT hikers must be respectful on the summit and follow the rules set down by the trustees of Baxter State Park I wish I could say that hikers are always
respectful. Most are, but sadly, some art. In an earlier episode of our show, we discussed how the bad behavior of a small number of hikers about a decade ago almost led to the terminus of the AT being moved off the summit. That iconic sign on the summit of Katahdin that everyone wants to be photographed with has a tough life. The weather on the summit, especially in the winter is pretty rough. According to Lester, though, the weather is not the greatest threat.
The greatest damage is people carving in it. Take a knife and carbon initials or other messages on the side. Another source of where is when people climb the mountain in the wintertime, the sign is completely encased in rime ice. And if they want to take a picture next to the sign they have to scrape it all off with an ice axe. When we replaced the sign in 2009, we published on the internet an invitation to come help us replace so somebody went up and sawed a quarter off the side as a souvenir.
What did Lester do with that damage sign? He donated it to the Appalachian Trail Museum and Pine Grove Furnace, Pennsylvania. So if you want to see the Katahdin sign up close and personal. You can either climb from Chimney Pond Campground in Baxter State Park, or you can visit the museum. You don't even have to climb any steps to get into the museum. So it's just a little less strenuous. But you can't stand on it and throw your arms in the air and a victory pose while a
friend takes your picture. Trust me, museum directors don't like it when people stand on their fragile displays. So if you want that picture, you'll just have to climb the mountain. The Green Tunnel is a production of R2 Studios at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. Today's episode was produced by me. Jeanette Patrick and Jim Ambuske are the executive producers. We want to offer a special thanks to Lester Kenway and Wendy "Serendipity"
Boller for sharing their stories of the Katahdin sign with us. We also want to thankJohannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, for making it possible for us to use the recording space for this episode. Original Music for our show is performed by Scott Miller of Swope, Virginia and Andrew Small and Ashley Watkins of Floyd, Virginia. We're able to bring you this show to the generosity of the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation and many individual donors like you. If you enjoy The Green Tunnel podcast, we have some more great shows for you at R2 Studios.org. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you soon