The first time I chose to take the approximately six and-a-half mile Five Ponds Loop at Baxter State Park was the day after a strenuous Traveler Mountain hike, both for its relative ease and for early morning opportunities to see wildlife. I recently explored it again in mid-September as a last, long walk before sunset, after other more difficult hikes. A detailed description of the trail can be found in the AMC Maine Mountain Guide and Falcon Guides’ Hiking Maine’s Baxter State Park.

In 2020, my hike was in a clockwise direction from the trailhead at the Trout Brook Farm Campground, familiar to me from my hike of Trout Brook Mountain two days prior (park in day-use parking near the sign that reads, “Park Orderly”). The ponds, in that east to west sequence, are Littlefield Pond, Billfish Pond, Round Pond, High Pond, and Long Pond, accessed through a series of side trails spanning the shoulders of Trout Brook Mountain. Billfish and Long each have canoe rentals (through the ranger at Trout Brook Farm campsite).