buckyball1
New member
Since there's little/no snow as high as 3500 feet in much of Maine, i decided to head to the Greenville area for a few more from the list before i enter hiking hibernation. Perfect hike day, sunny and 30 at 7AM, warming to lo 50s by late afternoon
Chris Keene, author of North Woods Walks (Maine hikes) was a great source of beta for these and a few more for next year.
Blue Ridge-2370' is ENE of Greenville. I approached using Pleasant St, East Rd, KI road, road connecting to Elephant Mt area (about 12-13 miles, mostly dirt-decent). I was able to park about a crow fly 1 mile and 800 vertical feet from the summit and had to choose between two possible routes; one 0.8 miles and straight at the peak, the other 1.5 miles, but mellower, more old roads.
As usual, i went right at the mountain. For about 3/4 of the way up, i was able to patch together old overgrown roads with just a taste of woods-easy stuff. Things got ugly at the summit cone which was 300+' of ups in last 0.15 miles and no trace of any path. This stretch was as bad as it gets-steep, large rocks covered with moss, lots of tuff blowdown and small/medium thick balsams-ugh. You have to fight for every foot in this stuff and are often "boxed in" and need to retreat and try slightly different lines. Probably 15 minutes to go 0.1 miles and they'd find your bones upright 10 years after you died in there. Fortunately this type of terrain isn't so scary anymore and i reached the summit to find it maybe the thickest i've seen this year--i thought this one would be easy. The descent went better as i carved over to my alternate route and after getting away from the summit area,had pretty easy going to the car.---back to Greenville and look for
Scammon-2090' I was pretty sure this one would be easy if i could find one of my approach lines that wasn't posted to the teeth. There's some higher end development in the area along with a lot of old school "stay out or i'll shoot"(literally) type signs. I had 3-4 possible ascent routes and found one off the Scammon Rd (dirt-good) with NO signs. I walked under an old rusted gate at the road, past dilapidated truck/oil tank/warehouse and up a nice slightly overgrown road. The grade is easy/steady and footing excellent-you could run up this road if you were tough. I'm guessing the road and a snowmobile trail i used near the top were about 1.5? miles in length-just a nice uphill walk; views here and there to all the usual suspects in the area (Baker, Elephant, etc and an excellent look at Barren and Borestone). The summit is about 25' north into the woods from the trail at the height of land just after you pass a cinder block building/small tower.
I had planned to just scout road entry to Elephant since i may need my strength for a series of hikes Sunday, but met a woman on my descent from Scammon who told me there was a trail up another mountain in the area that was on my list for next year (silly me, i thought it was a 100% 'whack)--of course it was all the way back in past Blue Ridge, so i retrace that drive, go to the NMWoods Hedgehog gate and stop to pay my $6--not manned any more this year-free
. You drive in about 2 miles from the gate toward Katahdin Iron Works (you'll be passing Gulf Hagis if you go there), but then turn left toward the AMC's Little Lyford camps. Just before getting to them you see a sign on the left for
Indian-2388'-I was able to park right there and buzz up the trail toward Laurie's Ledge-maybe 1.6? miles on a good trail which isn't at all worn/eroded-nice walk in the woods. The views east from the ledge are excellent. I then continued up by a very nice, but very circuitous route around/past the "top" to the "west" view area-end of trail. Superb views of Blue Ridge, Elephant, Moose in the distance, but a great closeup of my old enemy Baker (that was a killer hike-just tough and some bad route choice by me). On the other hand, Indian was a nice uphill walk to the west ledge and i was told the "top" was a few feet into the woods. It was more like 200' though moderately dense woods with a summit of large moss/tree covered boulders with deep cracks and crevices all over the place-not what you want to see solo when you're somewhere that wasn't on the agenda you left at home (visions of NH calling in 25K helicopter for negligence; sorry couldn't resist)
not enough daylight to contemplate Elephant (and I need to come back in 2010 for Prong anyway)
good day, fun hikes (don't ever bother doing Blue Ridge)
jim
Chris Keene, author of North Woods Walks (Maine hikes) was a great source of beta for these and a few more for next year.
Blue Ridge-2370' is ENE of Greenville. I approached using Pleasant St, East Rd, KI road, road connecting to Elephant Mt area (about 12-13 miles, mostly dirt-decent). I was able to park about a crow fly 1 mile and 800 vertical feet from the summit and had to choose between two possible routes; one 0.8 miles and straight at the peak, the other 1.5 miles, but mellower, more old roads.
As usual, i went right at the mountain. For about 3/4 of the way up, i was able to patch together old overgrown roads with just a taste of woods-easy stuff. Things got ugly at the summit cone which was 300+' of ups in last 0.15 miles and no trace of any path. This stretch was as bad as it gets-steep, large rocks covered with moss, lots of tuff blowdown and small/medium thick balsams-ugh. You have to fight for every foot in this stuff and are often "boxed in" and need to retreat and try slightly different lines. Probably 15 minutes to go 0.1 miles and they'd find your bones upright 10 years after you died in there. Fortunately this type of terrain isn't so scary anymore and i reached the summit to find it maybe the thickest i've seen this year--i thought this one would be easy. The descent went better as i carved over to my alternate route and after getting away from the summit area,had pretty easy going to the car.---back to Greenville and look for
Scammon-2090' I was pretty sure this one would be easy if i could find one of my approach lines that wasn't posted to the teeth. There's some higher end development in the area along with a lot of old school "stay out or i'll shoot"(literally) type signs. I had 3-4 possible ascent routes and found one off the Scammon Rd (dirt-good) with NO signs. I walked under an old rusted gate at the road, past dilapidated truck/oil tank/warehouse and up a nice slightly overgrown road. The grade is easy/steady and footing excellent-you could run up this road if you were tough. I'm guessing the road and a snowmobile trail i used near the top were about 1.5? miles in length-just a nice uphill walk; views here and there to all the usual suspects in the area (Baker, Elephant, etc and an excellent look at Barren and Borestone). The summit is about 25' north into the woods from the trail at the height of land just after you pass a cinder block building/small tower.
I had planned to just scout road entry to Elephant since i may need my strength for a series of hikes Sunday, but met a woman on my descent from Scammon who told me there was a trail up another mountain in the area that was on my list for next year (silly me, i thought it was a 100% 'whack)--of course it was all the way back in past Blue Ridge, so i retrace that drive, go to the NMWoods Hedgehog gate and stop to pay my $6--not manned any more this year-free
. You drive in about 2 miles from the gate toward Katahdin Iron Works (you'll be passing Gulf Hagis if you go there), but then turn left toward the AMC's Little Lyford camps. Just before getting to them you see a sign on the left forIndian-2388'-I was able to park right there and buzz up the trail toward Laurie's Ledge-maybe 1.6? miles on a good trail which isn't at all worn/eroded-nice walk in the woods. The views east from the ledge are excellent. I then continued up by a very nice, but very circuitous route around/past the "top" to the "west" view area-end of trail. Superb views of Blue Ridge, Elephant, Moose in the distance, but a great closeup of my old enemy Baker (that was a killer hike-just tough and some bad route choice by me). On the other hand, Indian was a nice uphill walk to the west ledge and i was told the "top" was a few feet into the woods. It was more like 200' though moderately dense woods with a summit of large moss/tree covered boulders with deep cracks and crevices all over the place-not what you want to see solo when you're somewhere that wasn't on the agenda you left at home (visions of NH calling in 25K helicopter for negligence
; sorry couldn't resist)not enough daylight to contemplate Elephant (and I need to come back in 2010 for Prong anyway)
good day, fun hikes (don't ever bother doing Blue Ridge)
jim
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