Bax question

I'm curious about the difficulty of Cathedral Trail. The initial plan w/ my 7 and 12 year old is to RT Baxter Peak from Chimney Pond, preferably up via Cathedral and returning via Saddle. I have never been to Bax before, and have not yet sat down with the Rangers, but in terms of time and difficulty, this looks to be a doable loop for the seven year old. This year, among others, he did Ammonoosuc Ravine and Falling Waters without trouble. Can anyone make a comparison between these trails and Cathedral? thanks

Two issues, I think Cathedral is more physically demanding than Huntington. It is essentially a 1 1/2 mile vertical scramble. As far as exposure, if your 7 year old isn't afraid of the vertical on Huntington he/she should be able to handle Cathedral.
If you're concerned, you may want to consider ascending the Saddle Trail to Baxter Peak and then descending the knife edge and down either the Dudley or Helon Taylor from the summit of Pamola. The biggest challange here will be getting down and up the Chimney. The Taylor is long and seems to drag on forever, but it is the easier of the two.
I think the biggest problem for a seven year old is there are areas on both Dudley and Cathedral where a long reach is required to go up, around or over large boulders. You should obviously be prepared to assist.
Good luck, hope this helps.
I hike this area every year. As I think about this, I can honestly say that I have rarely seen children as young as 7 on most of these trails. IMO, there isn't anything in NH that is as demanding as Katahdin and the surrounding area.

Cathedral is more difficult the Falling Waters or Ammo by far, there's just a lot more big rock scrambles. The Saddle is the easier alternative by far. I've gone down Cathedral twice, never up it.

I'm still thinking about my earlier post. I think you want to be very cautious about taking a 7 year old up Cathedral. I've been up it a number of times and I don't even want to think about descending it. And thats the problem. If you're child has a problem, turning around and decending may be worse.
If you chose to scale back a little, try going up to Chimney Pond and then partway up the Dudley to the Pamola Caves. Great fun for kids!! Or take them to Sandy Stream Pond for late afternoon/evening moose watching. Also great fun.
Good luck and enjoy BSP, IMO the most amazing place in New England.

I agree with Dave, the Cathedral trail is much more difficult than the Ammo or Falling Waters trails. It's very steep with lots of boulders to climb over or around and totally exposed. Some spots have very steep drop offs. If you're uncomfortable with heights I'd suggest another route.

The only time I ever climbed that trail I went with my girlfriend. She totally freaked out and climbed back down. Luckily we were still near the beginning of the steep stuff. I decided to go the top and return down the Saddle Trail. About a month later we broke up and I swear it's because of that trail!

To give you an idea on how steep the trails are, here's a picture of two of my friends descending the Saddle trail. It's a much easier route than Cathedral, but still has its own challenges.

I'd also recommend avoiding Cathedral. Knife Edge is also very narrow. Most kids I know under 10 I'd only consider taking them up & down the Saddle Trail if I took them up Katahdin at all.

While both of the trails you did are fairly steep, in most places they are in the trees too. That's not the case with trails up Katahdin.

I'm not so sure all the rock on Cathedral are stable either, last fatality on that trail I believe was caused either by falling rock or crush type injury.

Thanks for the replies. Good advice. His ability is predictable but this could clearly be a smart place to draw the line. We'll see. I'll be listening to the rangers too. thanks all.

arm's recommendation of Hamlin is a good one unless you "need" to climb "K" this trip--it's a good tough, steep, rocky trail, but a cut or so below Cathedral in terms of exposure/difficulty--views are superb(really superb), relatively few people climb "over there" --the kids reaction to Hamlin will give you a great indication for doing the trails on "K" proper for the next trip---and you can always hike over to "K" if you're feeling really strong and then down the Saddle-have fun---jim

TenPeaks said:

The only time I ever climbed that trail I went with my girlfriend. She totally freaked out and climbed back down. Luckily we were still near the beginning of the steep stuff. I decided to go the top and return down the Saddle Trail. About a month later we broke up and I swear it's because of that trail!.

Click to expand...

Funny story,,,,, my EX fiance broke down on that trail but she made it to the top!

Ralph