Maine blitz: Mount Blue, Caribou and Tumbledown

[Papa Bear]

Mount Blue - Monday July 11, 2005

On Monday, my "blitz" moved to Maine. I had to fit in hiking 2 peaks from the New England Fifty Finest list, plus hike a section of the AT and combine these with a visit to Audrey and Pat. I planned to stay over in Andover Monday night, so on the way up I took take Route 2 over to Route 142 and up to Weld, and then drove over the dirt roads in Mount Blue State Park and hiked this little known but lovely little prominent peak.

For a discussion of the New England Fifty Finest list (including links to maps for each peak) and prominence, see my web page: Pb's FF page

I left Hikers Paradise in Gorham at 7:45 after Bruno's breakfast. Traffic was delayed by two spots of road work in Bethel. Why is there always some road work on the roads I need to travel whenever I go to Maine?

I made my way through the old rusty Androscoggin mill towns along Route 2 and then up to Weld, where I found the entrance to the State park. This involved about 3 miles of driving over county roads and 6 miles over the park's dirt roads. The mountain and directions are well described in the AMC's Maine Mountain Guide. In spite of good directions, I managed to take a wrong turn on the dirt road and ended up back on Route 142 about 3 miles north of Weld. The Map in the DeLorme Atlas is quite clear and accurate (if I had only bothered to look at it!). I tried again and arrived at the trailhead parking lot at 9:55 AM and was off and hiking 10 minutes later. A ranger showed up as I was leaving, and assured me that there was no fee to just hike the mountain.

The trail was short and easy and the day was sunny and clear. But it was good I got going early since the weather would get hot and humid by mid day. I started up along an easy woods road (this was an old fire tower mountain and this must have been the firewarden's trail). It got steeper and rockier and about halfway up the old firewarden's cabin was just off the trail and in good shape. The book says there is a "fine spring" at the cabin, but I didn't check it out.

The trail then became steeper and more eroded but never difficult. In just over an hour I arrived at the open summit where there was the old tower with no cab or ladder and a small solar powered communications building (which seem to be on all Maine prominent peaks!). There were short trails going off in various directions affording good views of the surrounding area and I took a few photos. I had a bite to eat and then made my way back to the car.

The high point seen through the old tower

On the way down I passed a few tourists going up. They were showing the affects of the heat but I'm sure they would have no real problem with this little mountain.

I got down to the car at 12:20. It was a nice morning hike in a little visited area and now I was off to meet my car shuttle on Route 17. Tomorrow I would be AT section hiking.

Mount Blue: #49 on the NEFF list
Elevation: 3180', Prominence: 1840'
Distance hiked: 3.2 miles
Elevation gained: 1800'
Time: 2:05
Photos: Mount Blue Album

 

[Papa Bear]

Caribou Mountain - Wednesday July 13, 2005

After a long hot day on Tuesday hiking a section of the AT from South Arm Road to Route 17 (a section I had missed in 2002) I spent the night at Audrey and Pat's cottage in Oquossoc. Cantdog, whom I have hiked with a number of times in the last few years was also visiting. It was good to be with old friends again.

Today the four of us plus Jeannie - Audrey and Pat's six month old Yellow Labrador Retriever - would tackle another of the New England Fifty Finest peaks: Caribou Mountain. Caribou is way up near the Canadian border north of Route 27. It's about 15 or 20 miles (as the crow flies) northeast of Boundary Peak (the one on the NE Hundred Highest list) and about 4 miles west of Kibby Mountain (described in the AMC's Maine Mountain Guide). For more on the new England Fifty Finest List, see my web page: Pb's FF page

On the Fifty Finest List, Caribou is "tied" with Kibby for #26. It's not really a tie: one or the other is the real #26. But uncertainties in the elevations on the topographic maps makes it uncertain which peak is the prominent one and which is just a subpeak of the other. In this game, the strategy in such a case is "hike 'em both!" I did Kibby last year and this year it would be Caribou's turn.

We got going from Audrey's cottage about 7:20 AM, went up through Oquossoc, took Route 16 across to Rangeley and then up to Stratton and headed up Route 27 towards Canada. From Stratton it was around 17 miles north on Route 27 (3 miles past the road leading to Chain-of-Ponds Snow) at which point we turned right on Beaudry Road, a major logging road. In the DeLorme Atlas this road is called "Gold Brook Road" but all the signs say Beaudry Road. The DeLorme map of the area (Maine map 38) is quite accurate. This road has logging operations in progress and at one point we had to pull way over to let a logging truck pass. They have the right of way and they drive right down the center of their roads. They don't pull over for you, you pull over for them!

After about 4 miles, the road follows Kibby Stream (on the left) and at 6 miles makes a left turn over the stream. Wahl Road turns off to the right at this point. DeLorme now calls the road "Skinner Road" but the signs still say Beaudry Road. The road has crude mile marker signs every half mile. At about 10 miles an unmarked logging road leads up to the right . The Kibby trailhead is .4 miles up this road (this road is not mentioned in the MMG, nor is it shown in DeLorme). At 13 miles you pass several trailers and new buildings on the left and make a left turn onto West Branch Road.

This road is shown quite accurately in DeLorme. There is a primitive campground on the left after the turn. This road is a bit narrower and rougher than Beaudry Road but has no active logging on it at present. Follow this road for about 3 miles. There will be several roads up to the right just before a bridge that is "out". We parked here. The bridge is not really "out". It has two sets of timbers which appear quite sturdy but they are twisted and it didn't look safe to attempt to cross the bridge. This would not be a good place to have to call for a towing service. Some of you out there might attempt this bridge. It's probably safer than some bridges many of us have crossed, but today we did not risk Audrey's Subaru to save a few miles of walking. If you did cross here, you could drive all the way to the base of the peak, but what fun would that be?

We then got organized and at 10:05 set off. It had turned into a typical July, hot sunny day, with a bit of haze. This would be a potential sunburn day. Our strategy was to follow this road all the way around the valley. DeLorme shows it skirting along the north side of the valley below a ridge to the north, then turning south with the border peaks on the right, and finally ending just at the base of Caribou. Our peak is actually the third and highest peak of a ridge marked "Caribou Mountain" on the topos. Those pursuing the 3Ks would want to hit all three of these peaks and this has been done by bushwhacking to the first (eastern) peak from our parking spot and following the ridge line to the middle and finally the western peak. Today our ambitions were limited to just the highest, western peak so we took the road all the way around the valley.

Caribou Mountain seen from the logging road

The road walk was about 2 1/2 miles. The road itself seemed to be in perfect shape. It had a very solid bed, drainage ditches on each side and was cleared of trees on each side. It was wide open to the sun and afforded many views of the surrounding peaks. It turns out there are 6 3000' peaks surrounding this valley (including one on the boundary) and I know some have done all 6 in one day. The only significant turn was to take the right fork about 1/2 mile from the car. The left fork was another good road that headed down into the valley. Our road stayed on the side of the ridge, which was good since we would have little or no elevation to make up. The forest in the area looked to be 10 or 15 years old, but this is just a guess as I'm not a good judge of this. The sides of the roads were dense with wild flowers and all in all it was an extremely pleasant walk.

We did no know what to expect at the end of the road. An old topo map showed a road that went right up over the col between Caribou and the border and down the other side, but recent topos and DeLorme showed no such road. We hoped to possibly find a remnant of this road so that the going would be easier getting up to the ridge. The Terraserver aerial photos (from 1998) also showed our logging road to where it ends and possible some faint tracks not only up to the col, but up to the peak itself. We would see when we got there.

At about 11:25 we reached the end of the road. There was a clearing and sure enough there was an old grassy road heading up towards the col, so we were in luck. This was long abandoned with a narrow bed which nevertheless still showed a distinct two track nature. It was overgrown but certainly not eroded. They built these roads well in the old days. At a point perhaps 2/3 of the way up to the ridge the nature of the road changed. It angled up steeply to the left and became in reality a cut, not an old road. There were numerous stumps and exposed rocks and it became obvious that this was not the road any more, but a much more recent cut. And to our delight, it headed straight up towards the peak. Just after 12 noon, Cantdog, who was leading, said it looks like we're at the top of something. We waited for everyone to catch up and looked around for where we were. We could see another peak about 1/2 mile east, but that seemed too far away to be our peak. Well, where was our peak? We were on it!

When we finally realized we were "there" we started scrambling around the thick brush next to the cut to find the highest point, and after about 10 minutes I cried "I've got it!". There dangling from an old tree was the 3000 footer canister (it was in reality an old jar tied to the tree with a string). So our long bushwhack turned into a bushwhack of about 10 yards. Did we feel cheated? Hell no! We were delighted.

The first entry in the register was from John and Bea Paisley dated 11/11/87. These were the folks that had introduced Audrey and Pat to the 3000 footer list. The last entry before ours was of E Schlimmer dated 6/5/04. Erik Schlimmer is a VFTT contributor who recently finished the 770. It was like old home week up there. And we where the first to hit this peak (or at least to sign the register) in over a year. I liked the entry from the Paisleys - it had a poem they had written on the spot:

This is Caribou West
We like it best
It's near the car
Hardee Har

Love it!

I couldn't figure out what the cut was doing there. It was much wider, straighter and better cut than a typical ATV or snowmobile trail and it didn't connect to anything. Not to the border swath and not down to the other side of the ridge. Considering how much the trees had grown in since the last harvest in the area, it must be recent or at least brushed out once in a while. Any ideas?



The cut up to the peak
(click for a larger image)

Returning to the car was uneventful, except the day was hot and the sun was scorching on this long open walk back. When we finally got to the car a little past 2:00 PM, I scrambled down to the stream under the broken bridge, rinsed my things off and cooled myself a bit. It had been a long though easy walk to what we had expected to be a tought peak, but I'm sure glad we got it done.

Caribou Mountain: #26 on the NEFF list
Elevation: 3640', Prominence: 2260'
Distance hiked: 6 (approximate)
Elevation gained: 1110' (approximate)
Time: 4:03
Photos: Caribou Mountain Album

 

[Papa Bear]

Tumbledown Mountain - Thursday July 14, 2005

Thursday was to be our fun day - Tumbledown Mountain. It's not on anyone's list (unless you happen to be chasing 3ks, which we weren't) and we didn't even plan to climb to the highest point (the North Peak). But it was a new one for me and it has fantastic terrain. This is a mountain I plan to visit again. Several times.

We got off at the late hour of 8:30 AM and after a few errands headed down Route 17 to take the dirt Byron Road over to Tumbledown. I was actually in this area just days before when I climbed Mount Blue, but I had approached that peak from Route 142 to the east and went through Weld. The turn to Byron Road is a left turn in the village of Byron and we stopped on the bridge which crosses the Swift River there where there is an impressive gorge. A solitary rock climber was practicing his skills on a rock face above the stream far below and his solitary dog was watching anxiously from below. Just how did that dog get down there and how would he get back up?

Leaving those questions unanswered, we drove along this fairly good road and stopped at the trailhead to the Tumbledown Loop Trail. Cantdog and I would hike up from here while Audrey and Pat would approach from the other side on the "tourist route". Actually they were heading up to Little Jackson, a peak just to the northeast of Tumbledown, and we would all meet there.

Cantdog and I got going a bit after 10:00 AM. The weather was sunny and a bit hazy (as it had been all week) but it would cloud over later in the day. The trail was an easy walk for about a mile, then it got steeper and reached an open area with fantastic views of the cliff face directly ahead. We were playing leap-frog with a group of 4 adults and 5 young kids (about 5 - 10 years of age). And although they were not particularly obnoxious (in fact they were a nice couple of hiking families), they did tend to generate a fair amount of conversation, so we let them get ahead and hung behind so we would have "our own space". Our trail turned right after the viewpoint and we headed to the cliffs. Somewhere the long abandoned Chimney Trail went off to the left but we didn't notice any sign of it.

We got to the cliffs and worked our way up to the right where there was a low spot in the ridge high above, and scrambled up over a number of ledges with several switchbacks. We then got to the "crux" and were stymied as to which way to go. The group with the kids was exploring something off to the right they called the "Fat Man's Misery", which one of the mothers said was a place you squeeze through to get to an interesting lookout. We asked her where the trail went and she said up to the left over there. Hoping to get the jump on the gang while there were occupied, we started up but could find no safe way up the narrow notch either left or right. There were no paint blazes and we had neglected to bring the book. Even so, the book is not exactly clear (I just read it) and even after reading a discussion of this point on VFTT several weeks ago, I had no clear picture of how we were supposed to go. I had thought the Fat Man's Misery was an alternate route with the iron rungs and the regular trail just went up. We were about to give up when the kids came to the rescue. The head guy (one of the fathers) said you just go up there and then crawl under that big rock. We had not looked far enough under the rock to see this. They then proceeded to scramble up, disappear under the rock and pass up packs, little kids and all their stuff up under the rock, all the while having a great time. I was reassured that the 5 year old girl had no problems and the wives showed no sign of concern. Either they were all crazy and suicidal, or this was really an easy spot after all. I gave them my pack and poles, which they passed on up with their stuff and then proceeded behind them on up. When you get under the rock there is a fairly roomy space going over a long slab which angles upward. The slab has a couple of iron rungs which make it an easy scramble. The ascent through the "Lemon Squeezer" (as the head guy called it) took all of one minute. So much for the crux. Just don't lift your head up too soon as you come out, or you'll get a good bump. It reminded me if one little piece of Mahoosuc Notch. Not hard, just fun. Once above this point, we let the families disappear ahead of us (it turned out they were going swimming) and then scrambled the remaining few hundred feet up to the ridge.

The ridge trail goes to the West Peak, a few tenths of a mile west, and to the East Peak and Tumbledown Pond, about a half mile to the east. We quickly went over to the West Peak and got good views of the North Peak (the highest point, which we would not be doing) and the whole area.

The North Peak seen from the ridge

We turned and went back along the ridge and down to the pond. This was crowded with families swimming, cooking food, lounging in big tents, etc. We passed by and found a quiet spot past the pond, where the trail over to Little Jackson (where we would meet Audrey and Pat) turned off, and took a break. It was just after 1:00 PM. After a short break I started out followed by Cantdog. The trail didn't look quite right. It had little red dots on the rocks and flagging on the trees and the treadway looked "new". Cantdog said this didn't look right so we backtracked to where we had eaten lunch, and sure enough the correct trail went off at a different angle. We were lucky to catch this wrong turn sooner rather than later. We figured out from the direction the "wrong" trail took and by a spray painted sign on a rock that this was a new trail to the North Peak (formerly a bushwhack). Audrey lamented this when we told her, since she said this was always a very pleasant bushwhack. Such is the advance of civilization!

The trail we were on was a link trail which went across to the Little Jackson Trail. Audrey and Pat had taken this from a campground, reached via an old road from Byron Road about 2 miles further on from our trailhead. We realized that if we had turned back from what looked like the impassable spot on the Loop Trail and went back to the road, we would never had found the car.

The link trail was longer than I thought (actually I was getting tired) and alas it dropped a fair amount of elevation which I knew I would need to make up. Finally I reached the Little Jackson Trail, left my hiking poles, and headed up. This trail goes up to the col between Big and Little Jackson and then turns up to the left. Audrey had said little Jackson has an open rocky summit with great views. Finally about 3 o'clock, I got out to the open rocks and found the rest of the group waiting, but the summit, alas, looked to be about a half mile away. So I said "I don't need to hike up there" and the group looked relieved. What a great liberating feeling (for a peakbagger) to say "I don't need to do that!' So we rested and related our adventures to each other and then started down. It was a long slog on a day that had gotten rather hot and sweaty, and at the bottom where the car was parked, all the roads around the old campground were dug up by a back hoe to prevent vehicular access. Audrey said the place had become terribly littered and semi-permanently occupied by "gypsies" and so the state had obstructed the numerous roads to the area to keep all traffic out. One thing they didn't keep out today however was mosquitoes! It was the buggiest place we had been to all week in Maine and we hurriedly changed out boots and got back into the car.

The day ended on a very positive note. We drove to Rangeley and had a nice dinner at a place overlooking Rangeley Lake while a local group (a father an 2 daughters) played fiddles and guitar. The next morning I would head back to New Hampshire. As always it had been a great - but too short - time hiking in Maine.

Tumbledown Mountain
Distance hiked: 8.3 miles
Elevation gained: 2450' (approximate)
Time: 6:25
Photos: Tumbledown Mountain Album

 

[king tut]

Nice report and pics. Mt Blue is a nice hike, great panoramic views of the mt's looking towards bethel and NH. Tumbledown is one of the fav's, even though it isn't as high or strenous as most other mt's. Fat man's misery is a little hard to find. I spent 10 minutes figuring how to scale the vertical wall before somebody else found the opening for me. The pond is very nice too.

 

[dms]

West Caribou

PB, the cut you were on going up to the summit is actually an ATV road built to install a test wind tower, which has been since taken down, or blown down. A little further along the summit ridge there is quite a bit of debris still left there. There are some nice views from the summit area where the tower was formerly located. Myself and two friends did the peak in 8-03 but did not see the register, we were doing all 3 peaks so we did not spend a lot of time looking for it. So now I've got to go back to sign in! BTW, we did cross the bridge with a 4 Runner and two Subarus, we took our time and had no problems, so what the heck maybe I'll drive all the way to the register this time! Great report and pics! As usual!

 

[bigmoose]

Pb ... what a hiking machine! Thanks for another great read. (You took the guesswork out of Caribou, though...no surprises for me there now.)

So...now that you're getting close...how many others you reckon have completed the NE2kp and/or NEFF? If numbers were awarded (like they used to do for the 111) methinks you'd have a low one. (Even 770 finishers like Schlimmer might not be 2kp'rs, maybe having notclimbed Shaw, Belknap, Black, Moxie....)

Whaddya got left now?

 

[Papa Bear]

Whaddya got left now?

I have two in Maine (Baker and The Traveler) and the 5 in Vermont north of Route 4 (Mansfield, Jay Peak, Cold Hollow, Ellen and Camels Hump).

I hope to do those in Vermont in August except Cold Hollow, which I'll do at the gathering.

And lastly on my birthday in October I'll finish

The 48 NH 4ks
The 67 NE 4ks
The NE HH and
The NE FF

All at the same time on Carragain!

 

[bigmoose]

All right. Cold Hollow is still on my radar for the Gathering as well.
JT

 

[askus3]

I am looking forward to your report for the AT section from South Arm to ME 17 over the Bemis Range, especially since I am doing it on 8/17 or 8/18. If you have any notes that I should be aware of since I am doing it southbound let me know.

 

[RoySwkr]

It turns out there are 6 3000' peaks surrounding this valley (including one on the boundary) and I know some have done all 6 in one day.

More correctly there are 8 3K peaks around the valley plus one at the entrance on the R, and a large group did all of them on a long hot summer day. DennisC took 1.75 days on them and it took me 2.5 cool fall days with limited daylight.