Maine 3,000 foot peaks!

[bogorchis]

To put it mildly, the peaks up in the Merrill Strip and Kibby Township are nasty!! The guys that put up the register jars in the late 80's may have had easier travelling. Maybe more cleared areas, less blow downs, but never the less, they must have put in many hours putting up those jars.

My hiking partner and I did reach the summits of SW Rain (well named, it's a wet, boggy mountain) and Unnamed Boundary Peak (North Brown) or Monument #414 right on the Boundary Swath, but it is difficult country to navigate. Lots of ridges, drainages, sub peaks, old logging roads that go no where.

Doesn't seem as if too many people are making the effort to get these peaks anymore, except for a very small hard core group. 452 mountains on this list may make people stop before they lose their sanity!

The country is fascinating and so quiet; the views from the top of North Brown along the Boundary Swath, looking into Canada are unique. And, there is no long lines of cars at the trailheads that we saw in the Whites! I wonder why!!

 

[HikerDoc]

Hello bogorchis. I finished the NE 3000's in the 1990's sometime and agree the ME ones are the most remote. Advice I got was to focus on them first, then NH, and VT when they were done. The worst of course are in Baxter, and everyone agrees Barren is at the top. Mullen is pretty nasty also. They are a test of bushwacking skills and if you can find these peaks and the summits, you can never truely be lost in the woods. Good luck

 

[bogorchis]

Hiker Doc

Good advice! I started with NH first, then did a few in ME and only have one left in VT. I have done Barren and Mullen, and I would agree that Barren is the worst, so far, and then Mullen. But, we camped at Russell Pond, and the ranger gave us some good advice about Mullen, so that helped a lot. Now, there aren't very many people doing these peaks, and so it is hard to get advice on some of the trickier ones!

 

[MarkJ]

double o boy

you ya got me goin... I 'm millin about Mullin and all that !!!!!!! Hopefully I will get there some day!!!!!!

 

[RoySwkr]

To put it mildly, the peaks up in the Merrill Strip and Kibby Township are nasty!! The guys that put up the register jars in the late 80's may have had easier travelling. Maybe more cleared areas, less blow downs, but never the less, they must have put in many hours putting up those jars.

Not sure that conditions got harder, just fewer hard-core bushwhackers now One of the classic trips to this area was in the early '80s I think, there was a large group (=slower trip) on a hot summer day did all the 9 peaks in the Smart-Caribou group. No, not me, I took 2.5 days in the fall using a Chevy Monte Carlo.

Now, there aren't very many people doing these peaks, and so it is hard to get advice on some of the trickier ones!

Thanks to e-mail and the Internet, I have gotten far more advice in the last 3 years than in the previous 30 because of easier access to more people. Of course in the early '80s there were some of these that had never been climbed by hikers to ask, no GPS track logs, no DeLorme with contours, some USGS 15' quads which showed mountains that didn't exist and vice versa, more locked gates, most of the first completers used 2wd including ordinary sedans.

 

[Dennis C.]

Hey, go for it, "bogorchis"! Don't stop now. You've got some scrappy ones under your belt AND there's new bushwhackin' partners available .... like "post'r boy"! Roy's right about not having "hikers to ask, no GPS track logs, no DeLorme with contours, some USGS 15' quads which showed mountains that didn't exist ...." in the 1980s. Now you can even print topo map copies right off the computer .... a big plus!

 

[bogorchis]

Whackin in Baxter!

Postr'boy -
You could start at Russell Pond and whack up to Mullen, which a group of us did a few years ago, but we went back to Russell Pond and camped. I know two men who tried whackin from Fort to Mullen,and it was so thick that it took them many hours to get to the summit of Mullen from Fort and back. It was very thick, scrubby country and full of blowdowns. They didn't get out until way after dark.

The bushwhack up to Barren was one of the worst -------*#!*! bushwhacks that I have ever done, and let's just leave it at that. I did it from the Owl. Some people try it from O-J-I, but I'm never going back there!!!!

Haven't done North Turner, but it isn't easy either.

You aren't allowed to camp in Baxter unless you are at an approved campsite. The Baxter Rangers don't take kindly to anyone who camps illegally.

Not to rain on your parade, but these are the facts, just the plain facts!!

 

[Dennis C.]

"bogorchis", I don't know what it's like to approach Mullen from Russell Pond, but this route to Mullen worked well for us in the mid 1980s: From the COL between No. Brother and Fort bushwhack north (along the red cross) down to the low point between the peaks, then NE to the Mullen summit. As always, blowdown and forest conditions are forever changing, so who knows what's there now. Your description sounds like they went all the way up Fort and then tried to go to Mullen from there (a bushwhack "disaster" for sure).
http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?z=19&n=5090565&e=501540&s=50&size=l&datum=nad83&layer=DRG25

 

[bogorchis]

Approach to Mullen?

Dennis - I don't know what approach that they used, as I wasn't there. We had a pretty easy time going to Mullen all things considered. The ranger at Russell directed us to go up the Wassataquoik Trail to around the area where Mullen Brook crosses the trail. There was an old logging road that followed near the brook, and he had been in there quite a few times. We followed it, and it was quite open until just below the small pond below Mullen. We went from the pond up to Mullen from there.

The top was most interesting! There was krummholz interdispersed with rocks that had to be scrambled up! Many holes surrounded the rocks! We went off the summit on a more North west compass bearing to avoid the worst of the rocks and holes, and then we headed almost due North for the pond.

It was a long day, but not too difficult.

 

[HikerDoc]

Mullen was not too bad over from Fort. You get a nice visual of the peak to set the compass and the blowdowns are not nearly as bad as Barren. N. Turner is easy: took a morning. Lots of moose paths near the top and nice views.

 

[spencer]

N. Turner all the way from S. Turner, or up from Russell Pond Trail?

spencer

 

[Tramper Al]

South Turner misadventure

Be careful up on South Turner, now. From my map it looks like if you went bushwhacking to the east of there, you might soon find yourself right out of the park and into the next county!

 

[spencer]

You wouldn't want to do that, now would you

spencer

 

[HikerDoc]

I did N. Turner up from Russell Pond trail and it is a short walk up thru some thick but mostly open woods and moose paths. I would not go over from S. Turner because it is much longer and I would not want to drop into the col between the peaks.

 

[spencer]

thanks Doc.

It looks like one would have to start well south on the Russell Pond Tr since the west flanks of N. Turner are super steep.

spencer

 

[bogorchis]

North Turner

A couple of guys that I know did North Turner from the Russell Pond trail. I don't know exactly where they started, but I don't think that it was too difficult a route.

 

[RoySwkr]

I did N. Turner up from Russell Pond trail and it is a short walk up thru some thick but mostly open woods and moose paths. I would not go over from S. Turner because it is much longer and I would not want to drop into the col between the peaks.

We started at the trail junction halfway along as we were coming back from Russell Pond and Mullen. Starting from S Turner makes sense if you want to climb it anyway.