Caribou Valley Road

[Stan]

Caribou Valley Road deterioration is cyclical with extraordinary damage being done after particularly heavy rains, sometimes combined with snowmelt. The road remains in such a state until logging activity resumes in the area.

About 10 years ago those I-beams were all that existed, probably at the same crossing ... fortunately, I had a rental vehicle and had no problem, or qualms, going over. It took a little guidance from my passenger who I think preferred to witness this from outside the vehicle. The other passenger slept through it.

 

[MEB]

http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/2982430400066420428TglOdP

Husband is the crazy one not me!!! Yeah...very scary bridge! My stomache still does flips when I look at this picture.

-MEB

 

[Mad Townie]

The REALLY crazy part is that he did it knowing he'd have to do it again to get out.

 

[Doodles]

Thanks for all the info everybody. We will use our judgement when we get there.

We will be heading up there this week. Good road, shorter hike, bad road, longer hike. Either way, we will find the bright side of the situation.

 

[una_dogger]

Doods, you should be fine -- we were able to park just before the metal bridge and the walk from there to the AT crossing is less than half a mile. Also, the Carabassett is easily crossable. We checked it out tuesday morning after some pretty heavy rains, and it was rock hoppable, plus there was a large board to cross on as well. It was dry all week in the Carabassett Valley this week -- so you should be all set!!!
Have a great time and good luck!

Sabrina

 

[MichaelJ]

No problems at all to a clearing just before the steel bridge where many people park. One bridge has an iffy-looking top on it, but is entirely fine just point your tires straight. The steel grate bridge is fine to drive across, then the slope up on the other side has a gully carved through it. It didn't look any worse to me than it was in 2005 when I successfully took the Outback up it, and I would have done it this past Tuesday but my passenger quietly suggested I not try it. Of the two wooden bridges past that point, I think both could be easily crossed, although one of them is losing a lot of soil behind the abutments and so a whole bunch of logs have been dropped in to get your tires up onto the bridge.

Past the AT crossing don't even try it. There are a number of "minor" bridges that were only a series of parallel logs about 6 to 8 feet long set next to each other, and these have sunk or collapsed, basically leaving a gully across the road that only a big honkin four-by or an ATV will get across.

I took pictures of these bridges and will post a link when we get our Redington trip report and album up.

 

[spongebob]

I think driving up Maine roads as far as you can is half the fun.

Making it over the metal bridge is easy(3.9 miles or so), but some people park at the parking on the left before it.

At the next wooden bridge (4.1 miles or so) you need to mess with the rocks and wood to get over if you have a regular car. The AT at about 4.4 miles-ish has some parking right before it on the right.

I have been to the washed out area at the fork about 5.4-ish miles in on the CVR in a Honda Civic and a Hyundai Accent, so it is doable.

We got props from the jeep club of about 15 vehicles that drove by one evening for making it to there. The jeep club drove over the left fork even crappier bridge that is in better shape from a few years ago. I would say a jeep type vehicle could drive as far as they wanted.




And for a bit more detail you can go here for Redington and CVR info. Crappy website with lots of spelling mistakes.

 

[Paradox]

Thanks.

What about the forrest roads not on the AMC map? Any other maps that are more detailed?? The pix on the rbhayes website are clear - there is a road near the summit of Reddington. Looking for a way down to avoid climbing Crocker summit 3 times as rbhayes described.

I think your best bet for maps of the area is to spend some time on Google Earth. Unfortunately the trails do not show up but unmapped logging roads do. The CVR is rough but doable up to the steel deck bridge for most any vehicle. YMMV, but you might save yourself a great deal of grief and aggravation if you park at the steel deck bridge. Car stuck

 

[MichaelJ]

I used Google Earth extensively for planning Redington, Abraham, and the various other Maine bushwhack peaks. It's an awesome tool for doing this, at least for the logging road sections. It's even possible to send from KML directly to your GPS using GPS Babel and thus leave yourself "notes" on when to turn where while driving to the trailhead.

I hope to get those pics up today showing the bridges' condition as of just last Tuesday.

 

[Mad Townie]

The scary bridge Skimom mentioned has had some recent work. We drove up today in 2 high clearance vehicles and parked just before the scary bridge but could have gone quite a bit farther, and even more if we'd had a shovel to fill in some bad washout holes. Didn't need 4 wheel drive, which was a good thing because I learned that mine wouldn't kick in.

Una Dogger & MichaelJ, saw your entries in the Redington register! Yours too, Spongebob!

Also tried marchowes's bushwhack shortcut and found the spruce have grown up quite a bit in the past few years, making it quite difficult. I have the leg scratches to prove it, too!

 

[MichaelJ]

Okay, here we go. If you click to "view album on a map" you can see exactly where they were taken.

Not too bad for this one furthest out.

The washed-out approaches of the next bridge. Slow and careful with the tires here.

Steep washout gully on the far side of the steel bridge.

 

[rup]

We were on summit of Sugarloaf on 8/21, and the network of roads around Redington is very clear.

 

[Peakbagr]

Those ME roads look like superhighways compared to some of the approach roads for some of the Catskill 100 whacks.

 

[Doodles]

Thanks for all the input everybody. We went up this past week. We went up about 5 miles up to the split in the road where we took the lower road to the pond and up to Redington. I got out and watched for ground clearance as Snickers guided her tank (Jeep) over the bridges. The road was washed out pretty bad after the steel grate bridge, but we made it allright. Short wheelbase, high clearance a real plus.

 

[trailbiscuit]

As of yesterday, I can report that Caribou Valley Road all the way to the AT crossing is completely clear, very easily navigated and totally passable...for running or walking .
Seriously though, you won't make it past the metal bridge without a Jeep, Xterra (which did so yesterday) or other form of urban assault vehicle.

 

[Nadine]

I rode up as far as the large protruding culvert across the road a couple of days ago on my enduro motorbike. I would have kept going but my friends bike didn't have enough ground clearance to clear the culvert. Some challenging single track and bridges along the way