WeRmudfun
New member
On our continuing quest to stand where a fire tower is standing, once stood or was proposed brought us to Mount Bemis, elev 3725', in Hart's Location, NH. It was #55 out of 92 for us. The weather reports were calling for hit or miss thunder storms in the area, so we didn’t know what to expect. We know now though if we got them, they would have just added to the ‘pleasure’ of the day.
We started on the Nancy Pond trail. There were two small blowdowns before you even get to the kiosk. That was just a sign of things to come.
The trail leads to an old logging road that was very easy to follow with a slight steady incline. We had 4 water crossing each one a little harder than the last. We were able to rock hop all of them. We followed it for 1.7 miles until we came to the unauthorized Mt Bemis/Fire Warden Trail.
Before starting up the trail, we found the Geocache. The trail, in the beginning, is in pretty good shape considering it is unmaintained. I even commented how this trail was in better shape than some maintained trails we had been on. I had to eat those words later. Blowdowns started out sporadically and were easy enough to deal with. At about 2900’ it was a whole new ballgame, there were tons, I mean tons of blowdowns. They were on top of each other and next to each other. We went over them, around them, under them and at times had to crawl under them. We have bruises, cuts, scratches our knees and backs took a beating, even took a couple shots to the head from some nasty branch stubs. At times it seemed this was the mountain to store blowdowns on after being taken off other mountains. As if that wasn’t enough, nature is reclaiming the trail in spots too, that made some blowdowns very hard to see. It made for one heck of a bushwhack in parts. The trail itself just disappeared. There were times my wife and I were talking to each other, but couldn’t see each other! We had maps, compasses and a GPS with us, and needed them to maneuver through this forest.
Finally we hit The Meadow and got some views and a break from the blowdowns. We also got to see out destination, Mt Bemis. From there our climb continued and at 3400’ we hit snow. We weren’t expecting it, but were able to deal with it, at least it was very spotty. A little bit after that we came to the Fire Tower remains…FINALLY!
The tower itself was dismantled in 1968, but personally it looks more like it fell down, what a mess. We did our usual exploring and found artifacts, then spotted a place on the remains for lunch, with a view. We filmed the view from the edge of a cliff that I wasn’t too thrilled to be on, but we got the video. After lunch it was time for part 2, find the true summit.
Getting to the true summit wasn’t far, but it might as well been. We literally had to push trees to the side just to squeeze pass them and forget about seeing where you were going, the trees blocked all your vision practically. Needless to say we made it and found the canister. This was an exhausting hike, we did an extra 2 miles, just exploring things along the way.
We made it back down to the trailhead in one piece, just with more war wounds, but we found the trailhead Geocache. Looking back at the video and seeing what we did…we can’t see a reason to ever have to go back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHes9XX4Rxk&list=UUvonD5mWIH03yQY3eosLwcQ
We started on the Nancy Pond trail. There were two small blowdowns before you even get to the kiosk. That was just a sign of things to come.
The trail leads to an old logging road that was very easy to follow with a slight steady incline. We had 4 water crossing each one a little harder than the last. We were able to rock hop all of them. We followed it for 1.7 miles until we came to the unauthorized Mt Bemis/Fire Warden Trail.Before starting up the trail, we found the Geocache. The trail, in the beginning, is in pretty good shape considering it is unmaintained. I even commented how this trail was in better shape than some maintained trails we had been on. I had to eat those words later. Blowdowns started out sporadically and were easy enough to deal with. At about 2900’ it was a whole new ballgame, there were tons, I mean tons of blowdowns. They were on top of each other and next to each other. We went over them, around them, under them and at times had to crawl under them. We have bruises, cuts, scratches our knees and backs took a beating, even took a couple shots to the head from some nasty branch stubs. At times it seemed this was the mountain to store blowdowns on after being taken off other mountains.
As if that wasn’t enough, nature is reclaiming the trail in spots too, that made some blowdowns very hard to see. It made for one heck of a bushwhack in parts. The trail itself just disappeared. There were times my wife and I were talking to each other, but couldn’t see each other! We had maps, compasses and a GPS with us, and needed them to maneuver through this forest.Finally we hit The Meadow and got some views and a break from the blowdowns. We also got to see out destination, Mt Bemis. From there our climb continued and at 3400’ we hit snow. We weren’t expecting it, but were able to deal with it, at least it was very spotty. A little bit after that we came to the Fire Tower remains…FINALLY!
The tower itself was dismantled in 1968, but personally it looks more like it fell down, what a mess. We did our usual exploring and found artifacts, then spotted a place on the remains for lunch, with a view. We filmed the view from the edge of a cliff that I wasn’t too thrilled to be on, but we got the video. After lunch it was time for part 2, find the true summit.
Getting to the true summit wasn’t far, but it might as well been. We literally had to push trees to the side just to squeeze pass them and forget about seeing where you were going, the trees blocked all your vision practically. Needless to say we made it and found the canister. This was an exhausting hike, we did an extra 2 miles, just exploring things along the way.
We made it back down to the trailhead in one piece, just with more war wounds, but we found the trailhead Geocache. Looking back at the video and seeing what we did…we can’t see a reason to ever have to go back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHes9XX4Rxk&list=UUvonD5mWIH03yQY3eosLwcQ
