Reddington Weather Tower collapse?

[dRitter]

Hiked Reddington the other day and was surprised to find the tower at the top collapsed in a heap of wreckage. I'm almost positive it was still standing last November (photos say it was anyhow) when I was on Sugarloaf, Spaulding, and Abraham on an election day better spent hiking than at the polls. Curious if anyone knows when it toppled, must've been quite a wind...

 

[MichaelJ]

Since it was there as part of a "proof of concept" for the proposed wind farm, I guess it certainly proved what the weather can be like!

 

[sli74]

Most definitely was there last October, wonder if it was wind or a winter of ice, snow and wind all taking its toll. The register there was one of the most fun ones to read . . . lots of names I recognized.

sli74

 

[SherpaKroto]

Most definitely was there last October, wonder if it was wind or a winter of ice, snow and wind all taking its toll. The register there was one of the most fun ones to read . . . lots of names I recognized.

sli74

I agree. It is funny that we had trouble finding it the first time we were there

I wonder if the tower's demise could have been vandalism. That wind farm plan is definitely not winning any popularity contests.

 

[TCD]

Remember the Pharaoh Mountain Fire Tower. Vandalism wouldn't surprise me a bit.

 

[Waumbek]

Here's a 6/21/03 VFTT report that says the "weather tower" was down then. Is that the same tower? Did it get put back up only to succumb again?

Trail: Mt. Reddington.
Date Hiked: 06/21/2003

Conditions: Caribou Valley Road in good shape. If you plan on driving farther than 1.1 miles PAST the AT crossing, you will need a vehicle with higher clearance. Pickup will do. Trail in good shape and flagged. Refer to Dave Bourque's direction. They will get you there if you read them closely. ONE note: The weather tower did not make the Winter. It is down, so there is no visual reference point. Also the register is on the right in a tree as you come out of the trail at the top.

 

[Tom Rankin]

Here's a 6/21/03 VFTT report that says the "weather tower" was down then. Is that the same tower? Did it get put back up only to succumb again?

Trail: Mt. Reddington.
Date Hiked: 06/21/2003

Conditions: Caribou Valley Road in good shape. If you plan on driving farther than 1.1 miles PAST the AT crossing, you will need a vehicle with higher clearance. Pickup will do. Trail in good shape and flagged. Refer to Dave Bourque's direction. They will get you there if you read them closely. ONE note: The weather tower did not make the Winter. It is down, so there is no visual reference point. Also the register is on the right in a tree as you come out of the trail at the top.

Interesting, it was standing in August of 2003. We missed the register, but saw the tower...

 

[dms]

I think that Mother Nature has finally taken her revenge on the ugly thing. When I first did this peak in 1985, there was no tower or trail. It was a long walk in from the AT crossing, as there was a gate there that was closed and locked most of the time. Then the peak was known the North Peak of the Redington Pond Range. About 1.5 miles to the south of the north peak of Redington, is the Middle Peak, it is totally open with some incredible views to the south, east and west, well worth the effort for those so inclined. Also it's a ME 3k peak.

 

[weatherman]

Doubt it was vandals

From the totally wrecked state in which I found it two weeks ago, only a big wind or heavy machinery could have toppled it. The heavy steel pipe that supported it was folded like a soda straw in several places. The undergrowth was pretty much intact, suggesting that wind rather than anything earthbound did it. I think its fall was recent, as the small trees underneath it did not show much in the way of scarring or efforts to regrow to get around it. In fact, one tree that I unfolded from underneath sprang right back up as if nothing had happened. (I congratulated it).

Now it's time for "pack it in, pack it out"... wonder how they'll do that?

Weatherman

 

[dms]

I doubt very much that they will pack anything out. I have seen tower wrecks on other ME 3K peaks, Tumbledown, Caibou, Jim Pond, but to name a few. They build them, use them and then leave them .

 

[darren]

For those of you that missed the register, this is what it looks like:

- darren

 

[peakbagger]

Thats not the first tower crash at that site. I hiked it with a friend about 10 years ago. He had done it the year before and the tower site and road had not been cleared, when we got to the top it was a surprise to him that there was now the remains of a tower on top. It looked as though it failed due to ice build up.

Unfortunately, given enough concrete, a 300 foot tower will stay up. Although that is one of the reasons that a prior development proposal on Sugarloaf failed, the foundations had to be massive as the the rock at the top was too heavilly fractured.

 

[bobandgeri]

Will have pics of the crashed tower up tomorrow night - Walked around looking at all the cables which all looked intact, as was the base. Agree that is was most likely mother nature that was the cause. It seemed to crumble about 30 - 40 feet from the base. Nice day up there today! We did the bushwack over and back from South Crocker with Poison Ivy, MEB,and MichaelJ.

 

[Tom Rankin]

For those of you that missed the register, this is what it looks like:
- darren

Interesting editing job (i.e., it is now over 4000'). I guess the canister itself is fairly old...

 

[WindFarmer]

I can confirm the tower's demise was indeed ice related. It was standing for the majority of the winter - but it only takes one good winter storm to "kill" it. These temporary towers are just that - temporary. I won't say how many times it has fallen in the past It's almost a yearly ritual for me to return to the summit - laiden with 100# tubes to repair it.

Love it or hate it, the tower will be going back up in a few weeks and we'll get that mess cleaned up.

So please excuse the mess - we're working on it.

-windFarmer

 

[weatherman]

So, a question: if it's there to gather data for a project, and it's collected data for several years and fallen a zillion times, doesn't that give you all the data you need?

 

[Stan]

Love it or hate it, the tower will be going back up in a few weeks and we'll get that mess cleaned up.
-windFarmer

You might want to take note of the conditions of Caribou Valley Road on the thread of the same name.

... and know that there's probably some of us who'd be happy if you just cleaned up the mess and then let it be ... but hey, we'd welcome you to hike and tailgate with us!

 

[Tom Rankin]

Ok, I'm not a wind expert, but that certainly did not look like a wind generation device. Is it just monitoring for future wind farm devices, or does it generate its own engery, (plus some?), or what ?

Is there a plan to put more (or permanent) structures up there ?

 

[David Metsky]

Ok, I'm not a wind expert, but that certainly did not look like a wind generation device. Is it just monitoring for future wind farm devices, or does it generate its own engery, (plus some?), or what ?

Is there a plan to put more (or permanent) structures up there ?

The tower is to gather information about a future project with wind power generation. The current (somewhat crumpled) tower has instruments to gather that data. It's not currently generating any power that I know of.

-dave-

 

[MichaelJ]

Love it or hate it, I'm glad to hear it will be cleaned up!