So provocative are many of the images in "The Maine Woods'' that people who read the book often take to the northern forest to see for themselves what Henry David Thoreau saw.

Thoreau climbed Moosehead Lake's Mount Kineo in 1857. Today, the grandeur of Kineo is tempered by the buzz of motorboats, water scooters and floatplanes. ''This is not really a wilderness experience anymore,'' says Toni Blake of the local chamber of commerce. Staff photo by John Ewing

Inspired by his words and by the prospect of discovering an unchanged wilderness, they resolve to do some or all of Thoreau's three trips in a week or over the course of several months or years.

The dean of this group is J. Parker Huber, a former college professor who figures he has paddled some or all of Thoreau's route 16 or 17 times since his first trip here in 1974.

Huber's book based on those trips, "The Wildest Country: A Guide to Thoreau's Maine,'' is the definitive text on Thoreau's Maine experience - where he went and what he saw.

For several summers, Huber, then an associate professor of history at Eastern Connecticut State College, taught a seminar on Thoreau in which he and a dozen students retraced 330 miles of Thoreau's journeys.

"It was an opportunity to experience the text and to create our own journal. It was a wonderful and rich learning experience,'' said Huber, 57, who now works as a teacher and counselor in Vermont.

Since leaving academia in 1986, Huber's visits here have been less frequent, though he did guide British watercolorist Tony Foster on a tour of Moosehead Lake and the West Branch of the Penobscot, and also joined Thoreau scholar Ronald Hoag on his sojourn to Maine.

So what are Huber's favorite spots? Mount Katahdin, of course. But also Moosehead Lake, the view south from Mount Kineo, Lobster Stream, the view from the front porch of the Chesuncook Lake House, Eagle Lake and Webster Stream. The list goes on and on.

"In 1976, there was a tropical storm - three days solid of rain,'' recalls Huber. "I was never so happy to see the sun rise as that morning on Chamberlain Lake. It was like experiencing it for the first time. Life is definitely simplified when you're out there.''

Most people who make the pilgrimage to Thoreau's Maine woods do not have the time to do the whole route. Some, like Butch Phillips, a Penobscot Indian, have hit just the highlights, comparing the landscape then and now.

``I've stood in many of the same places and tried to visualize what it looked like,'' said Phillips, who lives in Milford and has a camp on Grand Lake Matagamon. ``In some places, like Chesuncook, it looks very different today. Before the dam on Ripogenus, that was all meadow.''

Many who come looking for Thoreau start at Katahdin, wanting to see the place described in ``The Maine Woods'' as a "cloud factory,'' its table land as a "short highway where a demigod might be let down to take a turn or two in an afternoon to settle his dinner.''

Burton Chandler, a 63-year-old attorney from Worcester, Mass., who as a boy spent summers in Ogunquit, has climbed Katahdin every year since 1953. And each year, he reads the "Ktaadn'' essay in "The Maine Woods.''

"It's an annual outing. I went every year through college and law school, and then I went back with my son,'' Chandler said. "In Thoreau's notes, from which he wrote the essay, he indicates that he made it to the table land. His description of that place is one of the most amazing and perceptive things you'll ever read.''

Stefanie Matteson, a writer and former editor of the weekly Penobscot Times in Old Town, is so fond of Thoreau and Katahdin that she wrote a book called "Murder on High,'' a mystery about a former Hollywood screenwriter and Thoreau fan who is found dead on the Knife Edge.

The victim, Iris Richards, is killed while on her annual pilgrimage to Katahdin, shot with a fishing cross bow.

"Thoreau's description of the mountain just insinuates itself into your unconscious. He's right: It stands alone, rising from the plain,'' Matteson said. "The mountain is symbolic of a great spirit. The Indians knew that, and Thoreau knew that.''

The documentary filmmaker Huey has been similarly affected by Katahdin and its connection to Thoreau. After several trips to the top over the past 15 years, Huey has begun work on a film about the mountain, in which the author of "The Maine Woods'' is likely to play a starring role.

"Climbing Katahdin was a defining moment for Thoreau. He saw what real wilderness is. And that's in part why people want to go there,'' said Huey. "What he wrote is as relevant today as it was 150 years ago. He's right - you see nature there in its full aspect, and it's overwhelmingly beautiful.''