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Mount Katahdin is the highest mountain in Maine. It is located in east central Piscataquis CountyPiscataquis County is a county located in the U. State of Maine. As of 2000, the population is 17,235. Its county seat is Dover-Foxcroft 6. Geography According to the U. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 11,337 km² (4,377 mi²). 10,272 km² (3,9 about 25 miles northwest of MillinocketMillinocket is a mill town in Maine, USA. It began with the selection of a site for the Great Northern Paper Company in 1899. Mullen, an engineering graduate from the University of Maine, intended to build a hydroelectric dam on the Penobscot River. He co. It divides the East and West Branches of the Penobscot RiverThe Penobscot River is a river, 350 mi (563 km) long, in the U. state of Maine. It is the longest river in Maine. It rises in four branches in several lakes in the central Maine, and flows generally east. After the uniting of the branches, it flows south,.

On the sides of Katahdin are four glacial cirqueCirque has several meanings: A cirque (landform) is an amphitheatre-like valley of glacial origin, formed by glacial erosion at the head of the glacier. Also known as a cwm in Wales, a coomb in England and a corrie in Scotland and Ireland. Cirque (novel is carved into the granite by alpine glacierA glacier is a large, long-lasting river of ice that is formed on land and moves in response to gravity. Equivalently, it is a multi-year ice accretion in mountainous terrain. The glacier fringe is the area where the glacier has recently melted. There ares and in these cirques behind moraineMoraine is the general term for debris of all sorts originally transported by glaciers or ice sheets that have since melted away. The following are commonly recognized types of moraine: Lateral moraine The talus and other material from the sides of a glacs and eskerEskers are long, winding ridges of stratified sand and gravel which occur in glaciated and formerly glaciated regions of Europe and North America. They are frequently several miles in length and, because of their peculiar uniform shape, somewhat resembles are several picturesque ponds. Katahdin is one of the best sites to view glacial effects in the Eastern States. From the low lake country to the south and east, the mountain appears to be one of the tallest and most abrupt in the Appalachian Mountains.

Fauna include bears, deer and Moose as well as swarms of blood thirsty black fly (a sort of midge) in the spring. Among the birds are Bicknell’s Thrush and various songbirds and raptors. The mountain has its own indigenous butterfly related to an arctic type. The flora includes pines, spruces, fir, hemlock, beech, maple, birch, and aspen and diapensia .

As the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail, Katahdin is a popular hiking and backpacking destination and the centerpiece of Baxter State Park . Among the Native Americans at the time of contact, it was believed to be the home of the storm god Pamola , and thus an area to be avoided. It is referred to 60 years after Field’s climb of Agiokochuk ( Mount Washington) in the writings of John Giles (Gyles) a teenage colonial who was captured near Portland, Maine in 1689 by the Abenaki. While indentured among the Abenaki they wandered up and down the rivers including the Penobscot, so he saw the “Teddon”. He remarked that it was higher than the White Hills above the Saco.

The first recorded climb of "Catahrdin" was by Massachusetts surveyor Joseph Turner in August of 1804. In the 1840’s Henry David Thoreau climbed Katahdin and his ascent is recorded in a well known chapter of "The Maine Woods". A few years later Theodore Winthrop wrote about his visit in "Life in the Open Air". The painters Frederick Church and Marsden Hartley are well known artists who created landscapes of Katahdin. The most famous hike up the mountain is called Knife's Edge.

In the 1930s Governor Percival Baxter began to acquire land and finally deeded more than 200,000 acres (809 km²) to the State of Maine for a park. Today, Baxter State Park is open to the public from May 15 to October 15.

Mount Katahdin is part of a laccolith (an intrusion of magma underground) that formed in the Acadian orogeny , when an island arc collided with eastern North America approximately 400 million years ago.

Two US Navy ships have been named USS Katahdin after the mountain.