Hamlin Peak via North Basin

Hamlin Peak, at 4,756 feet the second-highest summit in Maine, is reached via the spectacular North Basin Trail, which passes through one of the finest glacially carved cirques in New England. Departing from Roaring Brook Campground, the trail skirts the shore of Sandy Stream Pond — one of the most reliable moose-viewing locations in all of Baxter State Park, particularly at dawn when cow moose wade in the shallows feeding on aquatic vegetation. The route then climbs steeply into the North Basin, a deep glacial bowl ringed by sheer headwalls of Katahdin granite, including the imposing cliffs of Hamlin Ridge and the North Peaks. Snowfields often persist in the basin's shadowed recesses well into July. Above the basin floor, the Hamlin Ridge Trail scrambles up open slabs to the exposed alpine tundra summit, where panoramic views encompass Katahdin's Baxter Peak, the Cathedral Ridge, the remote Klondike plateau, and on clear days the peaks of the White Mountains across the Maine-New Hampshire border. The summit sits entirely within the Katahdin Arctic Zone, a specially protected fragile tundra corridor requiring strict off-trail travel rules.