Roughest roads in New England... how rough for how long?

[cushetunk]

(I don't think this has already been posted and I'm sorry if it has, or if it is too similar to the WMNF road status thread.)

So I just wrote a post arguing somewhat off the top of my head that New England has very few rough roads that access regular hiking trailheads. I'm wondering just how many such roads there are that I may not know of, and how long they are. The purpose I'm thinking of is to get some quantity of extra hiking miles if one choose not to drive on any of these roads. How much extra walking is the average hiker potentially taking on?

Some definitions: By rough road I am thinking of something that in summer is usually not passable by a Honda Civic with careful driving (let's call this the "Civic test" and have grades of pass, fail, and unpredictable). By hiking trailhead I mean something that the average dedicated hiker is likely to attempt. So, yes anything on a regular list (4000s, HH, many 3000s), but probably not the town highpoint in T3R5 Maine. By miles to trailhead I mean miles from the last point you can pass the Civic test to the point where everyone must hike. All these things are uncertain but it's a small effort at consistency.

I don't have much to begin with, but if this takes off and I feel energetic I'll cut and paste the list into this first post for posterity:

Here's the list:

Road.... State... "Civic Test score"... Miles to trailhead

Caribou Valley Road... Maine... Fail/Unpredictable... 4 miles?? (need to check)
Success Pond Road... Maine/NH... Unpredictable... 10 miles??

 

[TEO]

CVR--you should be able to get to the metal grate bridge, which is much less than a mile from the AT crossing, with a Civic. An Outback would get you 1.1 miles past the AT crossing. Would a brand new Civic? No. One with 100k+ miles? Maybe.

But why would you buy a car based on the one or two roads that you will, at best want to do once or twice every several years? Assuming that you drive a reasonable amount, the money you would save by having a very fuel efficient car would easily pay for the rental of a high-clearance vehicle on those rare occasions.

 

[cushetunk]

But why would you buy a car based on the one or two roads that you will, at best want to do once or twice every several years? Assuming that you drive a reasonable amount, the money you would save by having a very fuel efficient car would easily pay for the rental of a high-clearance vehicle on those rare occasions.

These are my thoughts too, and I wrote them so on another thread. I don't really want this to be about the pros and cons of driving vs. not driving though. I'm more academically interested in just how many or how few "rough roads" there are.

 

[Mohamed Ellozy]

But why would you buy a car based on the one or two roads that you will, at best want to do once or twice every several years? Assuming that you drive a reasonable amount, the money you would save by having a very fuel efficient car would easily pay for the rental of a high-clearance vehicle on those rare occasions.

Even better, for those rare trips you could go with a friend who owns a high clearance car

 

[bikehikeskifish]

Success Pond Road... Maine/NH... Unpredictable... 10 miles??

To which trail head? The Goose Eye trail is 8.1 miles from Berlin and was passable 2 months ago in a 2001 Honda Accord running 25 MPH +/- 5.

Tim

 

[arghman]

Success Pond road isn't usually too bad -- it's there for logging trucks so they keep it in fairly decent shape.

Sandwich Notch road should definitely be on the list. I drove over it once in my Corolla and it was passable but I won't drive it again (IIRC it was narrow and had very little sight distance so at certain points you couldn't tell if anyone was coming until they were right in front of you).

There are a lot of roads that are in bad shape from the perspective of normal cars. I've used up too much of my good luck driving on a few of them (including one in coastal Maine that had oscillating ruts so bad my car started bouncing up and down terribly when I had the misfortune of driving it at the resonant frequency of my suspension ). Some I've been on, only because there was someone else willing to drive a higher-clearance vehicle. There's the Phillips Brook area, and once I went with a group to Mt. Abraham via the road through Barnjum.

 

[Paradox]

The logging access road to Elephant is pretty rough, though not quite as bad as the CVR above the steel deck bridge. It is quite a bit steeper than the CVR.

 

[bandana4me]

Klr 650

That is part of the reason I bought a combonation dirt/road motorcycle. Any roads I do not feel comfortable with a car, I take my bike.

The best thing about the bike: It does NOT require a parking permit!!!!!!!!

 

[jniehof]

Are we talking "Current conditions", "average for the past five years", or "worst conditions of the past 20"? Because Success Pond is definitely currently a Pass, and CVR of course depends on where you draw the line. (Pass to within 1mi of the AT, unpredictable to slightly past it, fail to to pond.)

There's also the question of whether you include engineering That Bridge on the CVR requires some firewood stacking. My former roommate has a pair of metal grates meant for getting traction in the snow...I've wondered how well those would work for getting past small washouts, like at that bridge.

 

[dentonfabrics]

I've never driven CVR but most of the forest roads I've driven would pass the Civic test, excepting Sandwich Notch Rd and Pond of Safety Rd (which I drove in a Civic and bottomed out). Also, the last mile of Elbow Pond Rd is deeply rutted too.

A couple of roads in the north country can be testy too. The main road thru Nash Stream Forest degrades at it's northern end, and East Inlet Rd in Pittsburg usually has some washes beyond the dam.

One road I've never driven is the one that leaves Rt 3 in Thornton, passes under Rt 93, and provides access to the Hubbard Brook Tr and Mt Kineo Tr. Is that one passable in a car?

 

[Mohamed Ellozy]

One road I've never driven is the one that leaves Rt 3 in Thornton, passes under Rt 93, and provides access to the Hubbard Brook Tr and Mt Kineo Tr. Is that one passable in a car?

Easily, as the Forest Service researchers use it all the time (Hubbard Brook is a world-famous experimental forest).

 

[Stan]

I'd caution about that road condition statement. Gravel roads change condition quickly, usually faster from bad to worse than the other way around. The maintenance of these roads depends a lot upon the responsibility for them.

In the White Mountains it seems that most are either in the National Forest or are town roads. I'm not sure how priorities are set but I've never had a problem with them though Sandwich Notch Road has gotten rough ... I've driven a high clearance vehicle for many years.

In Maine, most of the gravel roads are indeed logging roads and the major ones are graded regularly, the others are graded as necessary for logging operations and perhaps for access to sporting camps.

Few 4000' in New England are not accessible by paved road, some of the 100 highest are accessed by logging road. Once you get away from those lists, however, a whole new world of hiking opportunities opens up, especially in northern New Hampshire and Maine and many of these are accessible only by logging roads ... some of which are gated. Have fun ... we've seen a lot of wildlife along these roads and the flowers and views they open up make for some interesting approaches.

 

[peakbagger]

Wiggle Brook road to access Cupsuptic Snow, Kennebago Divide and White Cap (and possibly Boundary Peak) and the various roads needed to access it can be real rough and can be as long as 20 miles and at times in the past, could beat up almost any car. It is highly variable depending upon logging in the area.