09/01/2026
Moosehead Lake is surely making its way through the internet as one of the great places to visit.
We agree!
Moosehead Lake is 40 miles long and 20 miles across, the largest lake in Maine and the biggest mountain lake anywhere in the eastern United States. 🌲
Right near the middle of it, Mount Kineo comes straight up out of the water in a 763 foot cliff. It is rhyolite, a hard fine grained volcanic rock that fractures with a clean cutting edge, and Native peoples quarried it here for more than 10,000 years. Kineo rhyolite tools turn up at archaeological sites across eastern North America, hundreds of miles inland. That cliff was a supply depot for half a continent long before anyone drew a map of it.
The lake covers almost 75,000 acres and the shoreline is essentially unbroken boreal forest. Moose, bald eagles, landlocked salmon, and loons that start calling across the water after dark and put a chill straight through you no matter how many times you have heard it. Loons carry their chicks on their backs for the first week or two, partly for warmth and partly because a chick riding up there is a chick a snapping turtle cannot reach.
Greenville at the south end is the largest town on the lake, and it is small. Head north from there and the pavement runs out fast. 🦆
What is the sound you associate most with a Maine lake early in the morning?
