Snow Mtn. (COP) and E. Kennebago: long report

Well, I had a productive, incredible weekend on skis...

Part I: Snow Mtn., Chain of Ponds

I left work Friday around 3pm and was eating dinner at Tufulio's by 6pm. I then headed to the trailhead for the road to Snow Mtn. (COP). It wasn't plowed, as expected, so I pulled in a bit to get the truck off the road. Well, it seemed pretty hard, so I drove a bit closer to the gate so my truck would be well out of sight. I got to the gate and thought, "huh, this is a good place to park and pitch my tent." But I figured it'd be good to turn the truck around first so I was headed out. Well, to make a very long story short, I got my truck stuck up to the frame in the soft snow at the edges. Yup, it took me over 2 hours, 4 sandbags, a jack, etc, etc. etc. and some help from a real gentleman to get me out.

Needless to say, I was ready to bed down for the night. I slept in my tent with the mesh panels revealing the most incredible night sky I've ever seen! I actually began counting stars. I got to a couple hundred and reminded myself how futile it was to count them. A lot of things in my life involve counting, measuring, quantifying, analyzing, but I was happy to just enjoy these stars…

I made breakfast and was skiing at 7:30 am. The road was well-traveled by snowsleds, of course, making for fast skiing. There was one distinct snowshoe track and at least one, likely 2 sets of ski tracks (I only saw these on the road however; I think their creators had a different destination or got caught in the maze of roads b/c I wouldn’t see these tracks on the trail to the peak later). I started off with hard wax, but quickly realized I was going to need the klister for the day. So, I opened my pack to find only more hard waxes and no klister. Yup, it was sitting on my dashboard where I had been warming it up... I knew it was going to be a constant struggle to keep the wax on my skis.

In 2 hours (9:30 am) I made it to the summer trailhead where the yellow arrow signs begin. Not long after, I put my skins on to head up the wide ATV (although much narrower than the road) trail leading to Snow Mtn. Pond (I had been on this trail once before, but I never made it to the pond b/c it was getting very late and we turned around). I made it to the pond in an hour (10:30 am) and snapped some pictures. After leaving the pond and heading up the trail proper, I saw no reason to switch to snowshoes quite yet, but after about 1/4 mile I gave up, stashed the skis and switched to the snowshoes. I could find no trace of a depression in the trail, suggesting nobody had been up the trail in quite some time. It was a bit hard to follow in places on the lower section through mostly open mixed-wood stands. I bypassed the 15 foot cliff by whacking to the right. I'm not sure my route was much better, but it avoided the sheer ice that the trail would have forced me to cross. Pretty heavy, spring snow made for a long trip of 1:20 to the summit (11:50 am). Breaking trail solo in deep snow is always more fun from the vantage of my couch when I'm planning a trip, than when on the trail itself!

I'm not one for heights, but I decided I better make the best of the tower and have a climb. The frame is very sturdy, but one look at the floorboards and I said, "no way!" I climbed up the ladder and stopped short of going through the trapped door. I snapped a bunch of pictures and descended. I looked in the small shelter for a register (I thought others have talked of the register), but could find no trace of one. Then I thought, "maybe it's up in the tower???" So, back up I went, allaying my fears of falling through the rotten boards. I popped my head through the trapped door and peered around. Despite finding no register, I was pleased with myself for throwing my mild fear of heights to the wind... I spent a couple of minutes dangling from the ladder while I picked out the boundary swatch, the boundary peaks, the Loaf, the Bigelows, etc. It was pretty hazy, but I could see many familiar peaks.

With my day's mission accomplished, I headed down the trail in snowshoe-tail-glissading-glee! Putting my skis back on, I had a good, short run back to the pond. I didn't spend much time there, knowing I had another 5 - 7 miles to go (I never really paid much attention to the actual mileage, although I think Gene's notes give some estimates). On the way up the ATV trail from the road I kept thinking what a great run down it was going to be, but when I pointed my tips down the narrow trail, I realized what havoc the snowmobile tracks were going to wreak. The cold weather overnight had really hardened the snowmobile tracks, making even a snowplow quite difficult in the depression. So, I survival-skied my way down, not falling, but not looking pretty either. In freshies (or at least without a frozen rut), this would be a superb, turning experience!

When I got back to the summer trailhead, I regrouped, re-waxed and fueled up for the mostly flat ~5 mile ski back to the truck. About 15 kicks later, my wax was gone, I was overheated, and I was headed uphill. Let's try again...

Another half-liter of Gatorade, losing a layer (back to just a t-shirt, in which I spent most of my day), and a long, gloppy application of hard wax put me in a better mood. After not too long, I realized I could skate quite effectively on my Outtabounds. Of course, it's very tiring to skate on wide boards for very far, so I made do with oscillating between 100 yards of skating and 100 yards of sloppy kicking and poling. I got back up to a plateau and realized that I had actually done a lot of climbing on the road on the way in, without realizing it. I figured I deserved some effortless gliding and was quite pleased when I went on 2 different gentle, downhill runs of a couple of minutes each!

I made much better time on the way home than I expected and was back at the truck at 3 pm on the nose. 7.5 hours roundtrip. I hadn’t seen another soul all day.

to be continued...

Part II: E. Kennebago

The goal for Sunday was to get to E. Kennebago, back to the truck, and back to Bangor before 5 pm when I had to pick up my other half, Joanna, at the bus station.

After leaving the Snow Mtn. trailhead, I had a couple of hours to kill before bedding down somewhere near the E. Kennebago trailhead on Rt. 16. I went to the Loaf to people-watch for a while. I headed back to Stratton, grabbed some of the typically mediocre food that Mainely Yours has to offer and headed down Rt. 16. When I got to the road that leads to E. Kennebago I was delighted to see that the road was somewhat plowed and very packed down by the constant snowsled traffic (uh oh, here we go again…). I was cautious and tested it first, and was confident it was VERY hard and fine to drive on. I drove in about ½ mile past the Landing and the road was getting a bit softer, so I turned around and parked near the Landing while I scouted a good spot to pitch the tent. I was most concerned about finding a place off the normal path to park so my truck wouldn’t be in the way of incredulous sledders as they rounded the corner and saw a damn truck on their trail (there were no other tire tracks, but there was no sign that said the road was closed and it was adequate for driving, so I couldn’t find a reason not to drive on it). I found a decent spot on a straightaway, next to a good camping spot. I put up my tent and went right to bed (~ 7pm). Another magnificently clear sky filled my dreams and partially illuminated my yellow tent.

A regular flow of sledders roared down the road (20 yards from my tent), making for a less than great night sleep. I was quite amazed when the parade continued until ~ 2am. Who the hell was still out riding the trails at 2 am??? Well, somebody was and each time a sled went roaring by, I looked out to watch, hoping I wouldn’t hear or see the crunch of a sled hitting the rear of my pickup (I’m glad the sleds have good headlights on them). I had grand intentions of waking around 4 am and skiing the road to get high enough to see a sunrise coming over the Bigelow range. However, I didn’t manage to finish eating, packing, waxing and putting the klister in my pocket (I wouldn’t make that mistake again) until later than I wanted. So, for two days in a row, I didn’t get going until 7:30 am.

The packed sled tracks were even icier than the day before, but I was better equipped with klister this time, so it wasn’t so bad. The road begins climbing very soon after the Landing and it doesn’t relent until you’ve reached the high point of the road where you begin bushwhacking. Despite the notoriously confusing roads here, I was pretty confident since I’d already been to E. Kennebago before (albeit not in winter). Each time I passed a turn, though, I still second guessed myself. I came to a few familiar turns and was then content that I was on the right path. I got to the highest point you can drive with a truck (the place Gene talks about, and the same place I had started my trip from a year ago). I thought about just busting my way straight uphill like I had done a year before, but the snowmobile trail that kept going past the very deep cut in the road intrigued me. It was early still (~ 9:30) and the trail looked like it was going to head to the col between E. Kennebago and the 3728 ft. peak directly northeast of E. Kennebago. I was all for gaining more elevation on my skis before I had to break into the woods. So, I followed the trail until I thought I was getting close to its highpoint and to where it began to head more northeasterly, taking me away from the summit I was after.

At this point, there was a pretty decent old skid trail (~ 15 ft. wide) that headed up the slope for a ways. I took it. It kept going and faintly took a left and continued through open woods. I traversed and angled uphill. I went through some very easy open woods and a couple of relatively short sections of thick brush. The snow was pretty deep in places and not so bad in other places, although heavy everywhere. I was lucky enough to hit the ridge crest within 10 yards of the canister, although there is an easy herd path to follow along the ridge for those who don’t get so lucky. It took 35 minutes to get from where I left my skis and the snowmobile trail to the canister. It took me about the same time to do it the year before (without snow) from the high driving point.
I had brought along a new notebook for the register (other trip reports mentioned the need for one) and filled it with some inaugural words. It was nice to see many familiar names, although the book that I signed in last time was now gone. Only the loose leaf papers remained. I left them there for the next several people to read until the new log book gets some action.

After about 10 minutes on top I cruised down. In my careless rush to get back to my skis, I was unable to avoid as many punctures and scrapes as I would have liked, but I made it down in 20 minutes. When I put my skis back on, I realized I couldn’t really ski the upper section of the frozen, rutted snowsled trail that I had skinned up (see notes from the Snow Mtn. skiing). So I side-slipped and snowplowed my way down to just above where the deep pit prevents further driving (the same place I keep referring to). From there I was anxious to let-er-rip back to the truck…

And that’s just what I did!

The ~5 miles that took me 2 hours to ascend took 29 minutes to descend, including a couple of breaks to let me legs recover!!! Woo-hoo… There are a few short, flat sections where I had to skate my way to the next hill crest (the klister was long gone and there wasn’t enough flat to warrant putting more on). I think it was 12:05pm when I got back to the truck (I didn’t take any notes like I had the day before, so I might be off on some of my timing, except for the 29 minutes). 4.5 hours roundtrip… and again, I saw nobody all day, although I could hear lots of sledders out and about.

I was home by 3 pm, only to get a phone message that Joanna had missed her bus from Boston and she wouldn’t be to Bangor until 6:30. To think, I could have skied back up to E. Kennebago for another run!

I took a bunch of pictures which I will put up in a day or two…

spencer

Excellent report: a solid trip well described! I'll make sure to bring some extra klister for you this month.

A great report: I skied mentally right alongside!

Thanks guys and gal. It was the kind of trip I live for...

I put up some pictures.

spencer