Eastman Brook Bread Tray Ridge 7/15/2018

[Jazzbo]

I've had it on my to-do list to explore headwaters of Eastman Brook with a view to locating old Bread Tray Ridge Trail. today was my first exploration of the area. I headed up East Pond Trail and banged right towards the Tripoli Mill site. I observed an attractive looking logging road, but declined to follow it, opting instead to whack up slope where I encountered many traces of logging roads and herd paths heading in general direction of Eastman Brook. I stumbled (or tripped) on the steel wire and obvious road and followed that for a time. I lost track of the wire after short time and soon found myself following road bed that ran along west bank of Eastman Brook. The road became more like a trail following Eastman Brook. The trail led into a marshy area and stayed on west side. I could see West Osceola summits through the trees.

I checked my map and noticed historic topo showed road crossing Eastman Brook so I missed that. it was turn-around time so I had to turn back following Eastman Brook trying to observe where road crossed Eastman Brook. I didn't observe anything, but inserted way point in my GPS from Caltopo (when I got home) to aid in locating crossing in possible return visit. I went back to the mill site and followed the logging road saw earlier. it was extremely high quality road bed probably the actual railroad bed. I remember the time I visited West Osceola and following the steel wire in summit area. I thought I might come across the steel wire again but no such luck. I wonder if the steel wire was insulated at time it was in use to communicate with old fire tower.

 

[Jazzbo]

I hiked up Osceola via Tripoli road on 7/30/18. I intended to see if I could pick up the telephone wire by whacking short distance to left off trail in shallow 3500' col between Bread Tray Spur Ridge and main mountain. The terrain proved to be extremely uninviting. it was sort of mature spruce/birch forest where blow downs far outnumber the trees still standing. I abandoned that idea quickly.

I did venture out towards West Osceola. I noticed some open ledges on north side of middle peak which would offer fine views of Dog Leg Slide and Split Cliff. I could just make out the two features through the spruce. My first thought was oh boy cool views, but open ledges appeared to be on chunks of bed rock about to calve off mountain. I noticed some scary looking crevices separating ledges from main mountain partially covered by thick deep moss that looked and felt like they were distinctly hollow feeling. so I abandoned that idea too. There are some terrain up on west ridge where one needs to watch where you step particularly when hiking solo. It is good idea to stick to the main ridge when venturing out to West Osceola.