Trout Brook Mountain

Trout Brook Mountain (Baxter State Park)

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Trout Brook Mountain Trail, Baxter State Park

The trail up Trout Brook Mountain (1,767 ft), 3.3 miles, about 1 hr 45 mins, begins from a small day use parking lot at the Trout Brook Farm Campground at Baxter State Park. Like Horse Mountain, the best maps and descriptions I found were in the AMC Maine Mountain Guide and Falcon Guides’ Hiking Maine’s Baxter State Park. This hike also gets its own treatment in Maine Hikes Off the Beaten Path. For those planning to explore more of Baxter State Park, Map Adventures’ Katahdin Baxter State Park Waterproof Trail Map is a great analog navigation tool in a place where digital devices don’t belong. Baxter’s great official website also has downloadable/printable trail maps, and the Northeast (Trout Brook Farm/South Branch Pond) map covers this area.

Steeper climbing, Trout Brook Mountain, Baxter State Park

At the beginning of the trail up Trout Brook Mountain, the emerald colors of hobblebush contrast with the darker forest, particularly as it transitions to evergreen. The trail winds through this forest and climbs rocky ledges dressed in soft green moss, with excellent northward views at about 3/4 of a mile up toward Trout Brook, Grand Lake Matagamon and the north woods.

View north of Grand Lake Matagamon and mountains in Aroostook from Trout Brook Mountain

Consecutive switchbacks and steps are carved into the face of the rock, each rewarding the climber with a progressively more expansive look at the river valleys, mountains, ponds, and lakes of Baxter State Park. Here, I caught the call of a ruby-crowned kinglet. Past the Trout Brook summit (near the summit when I went in 2025, there was a large deposit of moose poop) there are a series of impromptu rocky amphitheaters with sweeping views from the ridge of High Pond, Long Pond, Round Pond, and Billfish Pond.

View south of Littlefield and Billfish Ponds from Trout Brook Mountain, Baxter State Park

To complete the hike without retracing my steps, I took the Littlefield Pond Trail to the Five Ponds Loop Trail, an easy forest path through creekbeds, mushrooms, and marshy areas, back to the trailhead. As I approached the trailhead, I was able to gather plenty of dry deadfall for my night’s campfire at Baxter’s Trout Brook Farm campground.

Five Ponds Loop Trail near intersection with Trout Brook Mountain trailhead

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Five Ponds Loop (Baxter State Park)

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Five Ponds Loop, Baxter State Park, ME

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.

Colorful mushroom, Five Ponds Loop
Fern-covered Boulder, Five Ponds Loop, Baxter State Park
Red squirrel, Five Ponds Loop

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).

High Pond, Five Ponds Loop, Baxter State Park
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A weekend in Baxter State Park’s northern half

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View west on North Traveler Trail, Baxter State Park

The last couple years, dad and daughter have picked a late-summer weekend to climb Mount Katahdin together at Baxter State Park (BSP). On last year’s trip, we diverted to explore some easier trails from Katahdin Stream Campground, and this year, due to daughter’s same lingering knee injury from last year and her recovery from late August knee surgery, it was a solo trip for dad. Not wanting to climb Katahdin without my hiking buddy, I set my sights on the Traveler Loop. South Branch Pond Campground was full, so I canceled our mid-September Roaring Brook parking reservation, and found a tent site instead at Trout Brook Farm Campground.

Katahdin from I-95 Overlook, Medway, Maine
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