Top Mountains in Maine

Maine holds some of the strongest mountain country in the Northeast, combining a genuinely wild high peak in the interior with long forested ridgelines that see far fewer visitors than the White Mountains just across the New Hampshire border.

Mount Katahdin

At 5,269 feet, Katahdin is Maine's highest peak and one of the most storied mountains in the eastern United States, both the sacred center of Baxter State Park and the official northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. Its summit tableland, exposed knife-edge ridge, and famously unpredictable weather give it a reputation for seriousness that few eastern mountains can match.

Sugarloaf and the Bigelow Range

Sugarloaf is best known for skiing, home to the second-highest skiable terrain in the East, but the surrounding Bigelow Range delivers one of the classic alpine-feeling ridge hikes in New England, with a long exposed crest and sweeping views across western Maine's lake country.

Saddleback Mountain

Rising above the Rangeley Lakes region, Saddleback combines a major ski resort with genuine alpine ridgeline hiking above treeline, part of what makes the Rangeley area one of Maine's strongest combined mountain-and-lake landscapes.

The Mahoosuc Range

Straddling the Maine-New Hampshire border in the state's western corner, the Mahoosucs are best known among long-distance hikers for Mahoosuc Notch, a boulder-choked ravine widely called the single hardest mile of the entire Appalachian Trail, requiring hikers to climb over and under car-sized rocks rather than walk a conventional path.

Mount Abraham and the Western Highlands

Mount Abraham, Crocker Mountain, and Old Speck Mountain round out Maine's western highland system, less famous than Katahdin individually but collectively essential to the state's serious backcountry and Appalachian Trail hiking culture.

Why Maine's Mountains Feel Larger Than Their Elevation

What sets Maine's mountains apart is not raw height but scale — these peaks rise out of enormous, sparsely settled forest with fewer roads and fewer towns than southern New England, giving even modest elevations a genuine sense of remoteness and distance.