BSP Bushwacks; Squaws Bosom & Barren Mtn

[onestep]

Monday I'll be heading up to Baxter State Park for 5 days. My goal is to complete the NEHH list but that will still leave me plenty of time for "other things". Among the options that have caught my eye are these 2 bushwacks.

Does anyone have any information or suggestions for these peaks?

Squaws Bosom seems straight forward with access from the trail leading up Doubletop from the south. Topozone indicates 2 peaks over 3K. Are both on the "3K list"?

Barren Mtn seems more of a challenge. One route from the E via The Owl and another from the W via OJI. The Maine Mountain Guide seems to favor the OJI route as being less difficult. Any thoughts on this?

Onestep

 

[Papa Bear]

Monday I'll be heading up to Baxter State Park for 5 days. My goal is to complete the NEHH list but that will still leave me plenty of time for "other things". Among the options that have caught my eye are these 2 bushwacks.

Does anyone have any information or suggestions for these peaks?

Squaws Bosom seems straight forward with access from the trail leading up Doubletop from the south. Topozone indicates 2 peaks over 3K. Are both on the "3K list"?

Barren Mtn seems more of a challenge. One route from the E via The Owl and another from the W via OJI. The Maine Mountain Guide seems to favor the OJI route as being less difficult. Any thoughts on this?

Onestep

Barren is supposed to be tough, one of the toughest of the 770. Good luck.

 

[MarkJ]

BSP wacks

Looking at Squaws Bosom from Doubletop,made me wanna wack that.The south rte looks good.When I do Barren,definitely won't do it solo.Millen looked nice from Fort,also there is N Turner.........you got 5 day's??? Have a good week!

 

[Dennis C.]

I've done Squaws Bosom twice, once when the official list (old quad map) had the 3010 ft. SE peak as the highest one of the group. Most climbers approached it from the col between Doubletop and that (3010') bump. Once you're off the trail, the bushwhacking was quite thick (to say the least!), but opened up a bit toward the summit area. With the latest topo map updates, the more central 3026' peak is now the highest and accepted summit. I considered a couple approaches for this; one from within Baxter Park, and the other from just outside it. REF: Map We ended up using the approach from within by hiking the Doubletop Trail fron the north to about the 2040' elevation. We then bushwhacked in at that level to the drainage (red cross). The woods seemed somewhat open through there. We then headed up into the ridge col and followed the mountain backbone SSE to the 3026' peak. There is a small open summit bump with a good view. There was a register jar when I visited. I will outline the second approach I'd consider if there's a request for it.

 

[dms]

Mullen from Fort

In a word, nasty. The first .3 mi. from Fort is not too bad, from there it goes downhill fast, both literally and figuratively. Very steep, very dense, a col from hell, then going up Mullen itself was brutal. It was so bad we dicided to take a different route back by avoiding Fort and going towards N. Brother. To make a long story short, it took us 6 hrs.+ to go a little over 1.5 mi. Some folks have suggested starting in the Fort/N. Brother col, rather than from the Fort summit. Good luck on this wack!

 

[Papa Bear]

In a word, nasty. The first .3 mi. from Fort is not too bad, from there it goes downhill fast, both literally and figuratively. Very steep, very dense, a col from hell, then going up Mullen itself was brutal. It was so bad we dicided to take a different route back by avoiding Fort and going towards N. Brother. To make a long story short, it took us 6 hrs.+ to go a little over 1.5 mi. Some folks have suggested starting in the Fort/N. Brother col, rather than from the Fort summit. Good luck on this wack!

For Mullen, The Maine Mountain Guide suggests going from Mullen Pond (north of Mullen) which is reached via an old Tote Road along Mullen Brook from Russel Pond CG. Map. Here's a 100k Map showing the tote Road: 100k map.

Trouble is getting to Russell is a long walk or an overnight.

 

[dms]

Mullen

PB, even the Russell Pond approach is no bargain. John Swanson may want to chime in on this, but he told me that he had a very tough trip coming in from that direction. Mullen, BTW, is a very nice open peak at the summit, some wonderful views in all directions. But there is no easy way to get there.

 

[MarkJ]

Mullen

I meant Mullen looked like a nice peak as a view from Fort.I would not wack it from there either...we were thinkin the tote rd as Papa B mentioned..any info on a better way would be useful for the future..MJ

 

[John H Swanson]

Barren is supposed to be tough, one of the toughest of the 770. Good luck.

I agree! Barren may not the toughest, but definitely in the top 5. Of course when you're expecting THE toughest, it tends to be easier than expected.

Squaw's Bossom is not too bad as long as you don't go from the DT col. I came in from the south, continued north from the col (leaving the trail, after it turned uphill), dropped about 100 ft to 2400ft, then slabbed on that contour going west. When the countour left this bearing I continued west to the summit. It wasn't that bad though there were patches of thick stuff. That was ten yrs ago so it could all be mature forest or blowdown now.

If I was to do it again I would come in from the north up the drainage as described by Dennis Crispo.

 

[spencer]

A couple of years ago I started up after Squaw's Bosom via the Williams Pond Rd. I found good skiing up some skid roads quite a ways, but then I got bogged down by ridiculously deep snow and I bailed.

When I go back, I'll do it the same way, but maybe not in winter.

I had a little chat about Barren with a ranger this weekend. He expressed deep concern over people going after it. He was not pleased with the last one he remebers where a certain someone spent a night at the top of the slide and got "pretty banged up."

I made a pact with him...

spencer

 

[Dennis C.]

Maybe "The Fifty Foot Rule" applies here (?)

Hey "dms" (Dennis), I'm one of the "folks (that) have suggested starting in the Fort/N. Brother col (to bushwhack Mullen), rather than from the Fort summit." I found the forest to be quite open from there all the way down to Fort/Mullen col (red arrow route), and then thick in spots from there up to the open Mullen summit. REF:Map

 

[RoySwkr]

PB, even the Russell Pond approach is no bargain. John Swanson may want to chime in on this, but he told me that he had a very tough trip coming in from that direction. Mullen, BTW, is a very nice open peak at the summit, some wonderful views in all directions. But there is no easy way to get there.

The PeakMaster & I did Mullen from Russell Pond and it basically consumed a whole day camping at the pond both nights. I suspect the tote road to Mullen Pond is long gone, we went up the obvious ridge and came down the brook to the S where we found traces of the old herd path to Fort. Now that the trail to Wassaq. Lk starts at Nesow. Cpg., that is the approach I would use, it is shorter with much less elevation gain.

As to Squaws Bosom, why not climb both peaks in case the next map switches them back?

I would rank Barren as the toughest of the 450+/- 3K in New England, although Mullen took me longer.

 

[dms]

Mullen

Dennis C., shame on me for not consulting you before I did the route from the summit of Fort! In fact, coming down from Mullen, we discussed "your" route going up the col, but we saw a slide going high up onto the N. Brother ridge from the Mullen col, big mistake! That ridge was horrible. But after reading Roy's post, I am still convinced that there is no preferred route for Mullen.

 

[John H Swanson]

PB, even the Russell Pond approach is no bargain. John Swanson may want to chime in on this, but he told me that he had a very tough trip coming in from that direction. Mullen, BTW, is a very nice open peak at the summit, some wonderful views in all directions. But there is no easy way to get there.

For what its worth .... I did Mullen by a route that would not be the first choice of any peakbagger I know. I came in from Russel Pond. I was looking to take the old trail in to the valley on the N side of the peak. I heard that this trail was nice and the prefferred route. I asked the ranger at the pond, but the regular ranger (Brenden Curren?) was off. The temp didn't know anything about the trail. As I followed the maintained trail (to the NW basin) I continued along looking for the start of the trail. Unfortunately, the start of the trail could not be found. Before I knew it, I was E of Mullen and rather then turn back, I decided (rather stupidly) to climb from the E side and traverse the ridge. The climb, like many SE sides of mountains, was hellacious. It was a beautiful warm sunny day. I had brought only a little water as I was expecting to pull water from the upper reaches of the brook. I was down to my last 8 oz of water before the top of the first part of the climb. I remember being so thirsty on the traverse that I would reach into crevices and pull out a mixture of last winter's snow and mud. Put it in my mouth to melt the snow and spit out the mud. The summit was nice and I enjoyed the open view. I descended straight down to the north over some pretty darn steep stuff. I kept thinking - first water I drink no waiting for the treatment. I came across a cristal clear cold, high flow rate, spring just gushing from the mountain. I was so gratefiul. I drank my fill, twice, and rolled around on the ground in euphoria. Shortly after, I found the old trail and followed it out. It was a very nice trail and easy to follow - obviously not completely abondoned. When I neared the maintained trail, I could see how the Russel Pond ranger had gone to lengths to disguise the start of the trail so it would not be used. I guess he likes to keep that part of paradise to himself.

JHS

 

[dms]

John, one more story about the ranger at Russell Pond. A few years ago he found the register bottle inside the cairn on the summit of Mullen, and the last folks to sign in were the Paisleys. He actually went to the bother to find their address and sent the register to them with a note castigating them! Eventually, the register ended up in my hands, and I put it back in the summit cairn on my trip to Mullen! To date I haven't received back.

 

[dms]

The bottom is pretty easy to find, it's off the Marston Trail. Very steep and very slippery. I did it in the late 80's, it was closed at about that time because of a fatality.

 

[bogorchis]

Mullen from Northwest Basin Trail into Mullen Pond

Several of us went into Russell Pond and camped there. We had the helpful ranger, who told us just where to access the old tote road that went into Mullen Pond. So, we started of on the Northwest Basin Trail to the area where the tote road went off. (He gave us good directions, which helped.) He had maintained this old road/trail most of the way into the pond, except for the last mile. Once at the pond, we headed up to Mullen through fairly open woods. The last half mile was very tricky footing with krumholz interspersed with big boulders that were hidden and full of holes. When we came back we started on a more northerly bearing off the top, and then slabbed around below the krumholz. This worked better. Great views from the top, and we enjoyed staying in at Russell Pond. Two men who went from Fort and over found that it was a very bad bushwhack and it took them hours. They got out at 11:30 at night.

 

[bogorchis]

Barren - Not at all well named!!

Barren is one of the most difficult mountains that I ever bushwhacked to. I went from the Owl. I don't recommend it at all!!! I never went through so much spruce that was growing very close together and other impediments!!! Try going from O-J-I!! I still have a few scars from beautiful Barren. By the way, the views into the Klondike are outstanding.

 

[Dennis C.]

There is no easy way to do Barren. From reports of hikers who came in from O-J-I, that's a bear too! Our group came in from (along) the Owl Trail also. It was very thick all the to the Owl-Barren col where it opened up, but only briefly. To avoid the krumholz on the upper ridge slopes approaching Barren, we bushwhacked parallel to the ridge line about a hundred feet or so below along the north slope. It was easier than trying to break through that intertwined krumholz but only marginally better.

 

[Papa Bear]

Several of us went into Russell Pond and camped there. We had the helpful ranger, who told us just where to access the old tote road that went into Mullen Pond. So, we started of on the Northwest Basin Trail to the area where the tote road went off. (He gave us good directions, which helped.) He had maintained this old road/trail most of the way into the pond, except for the last mile. Once at the pond, we headed up to Mullen through fairly open woods. ...

bogochris

The MMG says the old tote road from Russell Pond to Mullen Pond has a some areas of beaver activity neccesitating working around some beaver ponds/bogs. Sounds like that is no longer a problem. Did you see any of that?