Millinocket is the last town before the woods. The name is Abenaki and the place has the air of a frontier, with a long main street, a few cafes and a big skyline of wooded hills behind. For most of the twentieth century it was a mill town, built around the paper mills of the Great Northern Paper Company, which gave it the title Magic City of the Maine Woods, but the mills closed in the 2000s, and the town has been reinventing itself since as a base for outdoor travel.
The reason to come is Katahdin. This great granite massif, at 1,606 metres the highest point in Maine, rises abruptly from flat forest and lakes and is the northern end of the Appalachian Trail, which starts in Georgia, some 3,500 kilometres away. Baxter State Park surrounds it, with strict rules, limited numbers and gravel roads, and entry for non-residents costs a fee. To the east, Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument was created in 2016 on land donated by Roxanne Quimby, and its loop road runs through spruce, fir and birch with views across the Penobscot River valley to the mountain.
For motorcyclists, the pavement runs out fast. The main road from town to Baxter's Togue Pond gate is paved, but inside the park the roads are gravel, narrow and slow, and the same goes for the loop in the monument. Moose, bears and logging trucks share the way, and rain can turn the surface greasy. Black flies from late May to June can be miserable, and the best months are July to September, with the leaves turning in late September.
Millinocket has fuel, groceries, motels and diners, and East Millinocket, eleven kilometres away, has a little more. Beyond, services are sparse, so fill up and carry food. Mist often lies over the Penobscot at dawn, and the view of Katahdin glowing pink at sunrise from the lake edge is worth rising for.