Four hikes during our weekend at Northern Outdoors in The Forks, Maine

Moxie Falls was on my bucket list this year. We had visited some waterfalls throughout western Maine last summer, which I blogged about in my post Hiking Maine | Following in the path of the Ultimate Maine Waterfalls Road Trip. There’s something extra fun about hiking when there’s a waterfall at the end of your efforts.

Moxie Falls is one of the highest falls in Maine. It’s located in West Forks which was an area that I wanted to explore. Since it’s a fair distance from our home, we made a weekend of it and headed to Northern Outdoors, a wonderful, knotty pine covered, rustic camp in The Forks. While they run adventure tours for white water rafting and other excursions, we were focused on hiking for this trip as well as checking another box off our Maine Beer Trail. Kennebec Brewing is located at Northern Outdoors.

The resort has rooms in the main lodge as well as an assortment of cabins on the grounds. We checked in and were given keys to Cant Dog one of the cabins towards the back. All the cabins are walking distance to the lodge.

The cabin was comfortable with a small kitchen area separated from the bedroom by a breakfast counter. There was a full bathroom and a wall mounted TV. It was cozy and reminded me of my youth and days spent camping with my family.

But, up in The Forks, it’s not about being inside. It’s about enjoying the outside. We took full advantage and pushed oursleves doubling up on our hikes by going on two each day that we were there. Below is a quick recap of some of the highlights.

Moxie Falls. This one was an easy hike about 1.5 miles round trip. Unfortunately, we were there in early spring and the mosquitoes were in force but we managed okay and prophetically had grabbed two bottles of bug spray instead of a bug spray and sunscreen. Even so, we had to keep moving risk being covered with mosquitoes.

There was a picturesque area of rapids at the end of the trail where you turn left to head down to a viewing platform where you can see the Falls. The first viewing platform is fairly high up on the waterfall, with two additional viewing platforms mid-way down and lower on the falls.

Magic Falls. This trail was a little confusing to find initially, but overall the hike itself was easy, although muddy, until the end. The last part of the trial is more difficult to maneuver as we weaved down the river bank which got fairly steep in spots. It took us about 2 1/2 hours round trip including a 15 minute visit at the rapids watching the white water rafts and kayaks navigate the river. There was a photographer camped out on the outcropping of rocks that we had climbed down to. She was tasked with taking souvenir pictures of all the rafters as they passed by. The perch on the rocks gave great views of the rapids.

Pleasant Pond Mountain | Attempt 1. We tried this hike twice. On the first outing, we missed the turn-off to head up the mountain as the trail marker was on the ground. We did have a nice hike through part of the Appalachian Trail and discovered an awesome composting bathroom that was clean and convenient. There was a huge bonus on this hike too. The mosquitoes were minimal.

Pleasant Pond Mountain | Attempt 2. On our second hike attempt, we succeeded in finding the trail up to the top of Pleasant Pond Mountain. I’m not sure that was a good thing. While advertised as a 2.5 mile moderate hike, it was fairly steep in places and was a little beyond our skills although we persisted and did make it to the top.

We drove the Prius for this trip and probably should have opted for our Subaru. Some of the roads to reach the trails were dirt and difficult to travel with lots of bumps and jostling along the way. A vehicle with a little higher clearance would have been better in these spots. Although, it was nice to get the hybrid gas mileage to The Forks and back.

The Forks was an amazing destination with stunning views of nature all around. Even hiking multiple trails each day, we only saw a small fraction of what is available in this area. We’ll be planning another trip soon.