Cedar Mtn Parsonsfield ME 11/13/11

[RoySwkr]

My third hike to this peak which allegedly once had a fire tower which was moved to Green Mtn NH. I had never found any anchors or footings but a friend thought he could do better.

Parking is maybe a mile NW of the summit, with a small cemetery on each side of the main road there. Each contains burials with the same last name in the same year. Wonder why a family would have two competing cemeteries.

Follow woods road to a washed-out bridge by a swamp, then uphill in a maze of roads of various generations. Take a wrong turn somewhere and bushwhack uphill to return to the correct road, a twisting path with stone walls on both sides. It presumably long predates the fire tower, for the second mystery of the day. Eventually it ends at a turning circle, and a path leads up to a view ledge facing S. It was too hazy to see the ocean, and our knowledge of local peaks was limited.

We checked the flat spots near the ledge for anchors or footings, and not surprisingly (to me) found nothing. Then we made a short bushwhack across a steep col to the true summit, and found nothing there either. But he wasn't ready to give up, and identified a 1101 bump half a mile N as a possible location. We used the compass on his match case to start off in the right direction, then just shuffled through slippery oak leaves to the bump. Still no luck! We set a visual course towards the swamp, and eventually hit a woods road that led back to our up route.

That still leaves us with the 3rd mystery of where the tower was, along with the 4th mystery of whether there is a non-twisty way to get to Parsonsfield from anywhere.

 

[BillDC]

Third time wasn't a charm Roy?

I stopped in there last year on my way to Pleasant Mountain, thinking that it was "on my way". I think not. Spent about an hour looking for the old tower site. The footings, if they still exist, must be below the sediment now. They have been there since 1920, so who knows where they may be!

There was a watchman's camp on this mountain as well. Just another needle in the haystack

I'll get in there with a metal detector one of these days and maybe I'll find something.

Bill

 

[Amicus]

.... and I spent a few fruitless hours myself looking for those footings about five years ago, rambling around in a fashion that seems similar to Roy's description. I actually found a remarkably square-shaped stone, on the south side of what I took to be the summit clearing, as I recall, that I almost persuaded myself might have been a footing. It seemed too symmetrical to be natural, but I think it was just a rock.

While the tower can still be visited atop Green Mtn., it has been shortened since its Cedar Mtn. days, as old photos attest.