August 5-6, 2017 Meetup at Mattawamkeag Wilderness Park in Maine

Started by DavidM, November 23, 2016, 11:27:47 AM

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DavidM

This post will describe the meetup, the campground facilities and surrounding activities, but I will only post here sporadically unless the LL site goes down. If it does, then this will become the primary communications tool.

Mattawamkeag Wilderness Park is in northern Maine near the town of Lincoln. It is a quasi government/private campground owned by the county but leased to an individual Carlton Norris who operates it more like a private campground. Their website is http://0354726.netsolhost.com/index.html, a strange url but it works!!

Sometime after the first of the year, Carlton starts taking reservations. Leave him a message by phone or email and he will call you back, but in the winter it may take a week or so.

MWP has about 45 sites, 6 with full hookups that front the river, another 6 with water and electric and 6 with water only, the remainder have no utilities. The riverfront sites are open (ie no trees) but have a nice view of the water. The others range from partially open to fully surrounded by trees. So, something for everyone.

The Park accepts pets on a leash. It has a separate laundry/shower/restroom building as well as couple of restroom only buildings, a dump station, a recreational hall and a bbq pavillion. Depending on the final number of attendees we may want to rent the bbq pavillion for a night.

Baxter State Park and the spectacular Mt Katahdin is about 50 miles to the northwest. But Baxter is rather strict and doesn't allow dogs even if they stay inside cars. I talked to Carlton about this and he said we can leave our dogs in our camper if we want to go to Baxter for the day and can even arrange for a midday walk if necessary. I plan to leave our dog and drive through Baxter to see the wildlife and Mt Katahdin up close and may even do a hike to the top of the mountain.

Adjacent activities include hiking miles of trails accessible from the park, fishing and exploring. We plan to arrive Thursday, August 3 and depart Sunday, August 6. We will host a bbq rib dinner at our site (or maybe the pavillion),  on Saturday night. Bring a side to share. We can do something together or separate the other nights.

We now (as of 11/22/16) have 10 campers who have expressed interest or commitment to come. Using their LL user names, these are: david (me, DavidM on this site), PEIslander, Paul (long shot- new baby), gbpack, leslie, Merlin, charleschapman, fasteddieb, Steve and Dana and docktorjj. If anyone else thinks they may want to come, send me a PM with your email address on the LL site as long as it is open, otherwise here.

See you all in Maine.

David

DavidM

This forum and this thread will now become the primary mode of communication for those planning to meetup in Maine on August 5-6. So please leave a short message here to confirm your interest in coming. I think I do have everyone's email address who expressed interest over on livinlite-owners.

Once we get a reconfirmed count of participants, I will contact Carlton at Mattawamkeag Wilderness Park (forever after designated as MWP ;-) and let him know of our interest and make my own reservation for August.

David

Merlin

I plan to be there. Let us know when we can start making reservations at the campground.
Michigan

gbpack

Joan & I will be there (gbpack). Looking forward to it! Gregg.

leslie

David, can you post here when we can make reservations for the Maine Rally? I would prefer that you make the first contact so we can have sites together, rather than scattered across the campground. Thanks.

DavidM

Leslie:

I sent an email to Carlton, the campground manager about a week ago. Another member sent a message on Friday. No response so far to either of us. But it is winter, so things probably slow down glacially in Maine this time of year.

So yes I plan to let everyone know after I make contact with Carlton.

David

DavidM

Leslie et al:

I still haven't heard from Carlton. His voice mail box is full and not accepting messages and it has been almost two weeks since I sent him an email with no response. I guess he is hibernating and we may not hear anything from him until spring ;-).

Hang in there. I will post something here as soon as I hear from him.

David

Merlin

Thanks David. Would mind also sending a quick note to all of us via email when you hear back from Carlton and reservations can be made? It would be easy to miss an announcement here if it got "over-written" by a post after yours.
Michigan

DavidM

Sure, Merlin.  I have the email list with all who expressed interest.

David

leslie

David, how are things going for the August meetup? I have yet to contact the manager, but on Tuesday, Jan. 31, I am planning to lock down my reservations for Maine. Hope to see you this summer!

Merlin

I just got a note from David today that he has not heard yet from the park. Since they are closed in the winter, it could be a while. I have all my other reservations for the east coast completed (but not for the entire trip). We are staying in Quebec and New Brunswick at Canadian national parks on our way to Maine. Their parks are celebrating their 150th this year with a free entrance pass to all Canadian federal parks. In addition to the free entrance pass, the parks opened reservations 3 months early and started taking them in January. We jumped on that and made camping reservations at 3 national parks for a total of about a weeks worth of camping. At one of them (Kouchibouguac), we got one of the last 3 sites available for our dates in August (!), so things are filling up for campgrounds right on the coast. We'll make our reservations (August 4-6) at MWP as soon as we hear back from David on who to contact at the park.
Michigan

DavidM

Further to Merlin's post above, I and others have sent emails to MWP and I also note that their phone mail box has been full. So obviously they are not communicating for now. I will keep on top of it and advise the membership on this thread as well as with an email to those who have expressed interest, when I hear from MWP. I suspect that it won't be nearly as bad as getting reservations at Canadian Provincial or National parks.

David

DavidM

Hello all:

Well, MWP came out of hibernation this morning and I got a phone call from Rosemary at MWP and made our reservation for the weekend of August 5-6. Chuck beat me to it by a few minutes and if others have left messages recently you should also get a call. So if you want to come, call 207-290-0205 and leave a message. BTW they are rather laid back and didn't require a credit card to set up our reservation. Also if you reserve and I don't already have your email address, send me a message with yours at my address below.

We talked about the pavilion, dog walking and discounts:

Pavilion- They are tentatively planning a chicken BBQ for all campers on Saturday, August 5th in the pavilion. So if that happens, we may want to do that and then do ad hoc get-togethers for the other nights. Rosemary said she would call me once it was firmed up. Otherwise the pavilion rents for $100 if we want to use it. It will depend on how many LL campers actually reserve whether we use the pavilion or not.

Dog walking- Pets are ok at MWP, but Rosemary confirmed that Baxter State Park does not allow any pets in the park even if they stay in the car. So we will leave our dog in our camper for several hours while we visit the park. BSP is an experience that shouldn't be missed- the mountain, pristine scenery, wildlife, etc. The park entrance is about 50 miles from MWP. Rosemary said that she could arrange for someone to walk our dogs once while we are gone. So let me know if you would like to do that and I will set it up with Rosemary. We will probably drive to BSP on Friday, but pick your own day and let me know.

Discounts- I proposed to Rosemary that if 6 or more LL campers came then they would offer a discount. So we will wait to see how that develops. Or maybe they will offer the use of the pavilion at no charge if the chicken BBQ doesn't happen.

So, Joan and I are set for site 33 for August 3-6th. Hope to see you all there. Should be lots of fun.

David Marchand
dmfeelingroovy@gmail.com 949-244-1496

leslie

Thanks, David. I called and left a message for them to call me back. We want to reserve a spot for August 2 - 9. Will post here when it is confirmed.

gbpack

As mentioned on email, I have made our reservations at MWP for 4 nights beginning Thursday, August 3. Since we are going to be there 4 nights, we took a FHU site along the river (although I don't remember the site number). As David mentioned, they didn't take a credit card over the phone but are still holding the reservation with just our name and phone number. Didn't ask for an email address either, so don't expect a confirmation email from them! Sounds like it will be very relaxed and laid back! We are really looking forward to it. Definitely want to do the trip to Baxter SP on either Friday or Saturday and we would be interested in having someone let our dog out of the trailer once or twice while we are gone. Gregg & Joan