Baxter State Park advice

[Gregory D]

Planning a trip to Baxter Park soon, and have one particular, hard-to-answer question (in addition to many others).  A primary purpose is photography, and I’ll have a minimal kit for use while backpacking, which will be 3 – 5 days.  Then another week or so of day hiking, for which I’d like to have my full-frame kit.  Question is:  Would I be an idiot to leave $5-6k of camera gear in my car trunk while backpacking?  Normally the answer would be a definite “Yes, you would” (I wouldn’t consider it any of the places I usually go), but with the limited road entrances and numbers restrictions at Baxter, would it be safer?  I’d be parked at one of the drive-to campgrounds, not just a lonely turnout.  What do those of you who know the place think?

Thanks,

Greg

[Dan]

I went there often in my youth, but it has been many years, so I can’t claim to know the current situation there extremely well. However, my gut feeling is that the odds of having your car randomly broken into are extremely small, especially if your car is fairly nondescript. And presumably your homeowners insurance would cover any theft (minus the deductible). So it’s really a question of how risk averse you are, how obsessed you will be thinking about it during your trip, and how much the potential loss would hurt you financially.

I would think the risk to be small enough that I wouldn’t have a problem doing it. However, I would say the same thing about everywhere I go, and you said the opposite. I have left my vehicle at remote trailheads for many days on hundreds of occasions, and never had an incident. So I think we may have different levels of risk tolerance.

[Gregory D]

Thanks for this.  I don’t know that I’m all that risk-averse, but I have had my car broken into at a trailhead, and know a number of others who have.  Thing is, these trailheads were neither particularly remote, nor in any way access-controlled.  Just dirt roads in the sticks, not much traveled but easily available to any wayward individual with nothing better to do.  I’d think the situation was a little different at Baxter.

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