buckyball1
New member
215AM..i even missed Rondo's turning the Garden crowd into a frenzy with his Willis Reed moment .
After a day of heavy rains in much of Maine, not sure what conditions i'll find for a fairly ambitious set of hikes; relatively little info about either one--3+ hrs on Rt95, off at Smyra Mills, Rts 212 and 11 to Ashland (looking very wet everywhere), then east on 163 toward Mapleton to the Walker Siding Rd (it's signed "Saponic") I'm trying to hike
Squapan-1495'--The "normal" hike on Squapan is to the fire tower on the southern end of the ridge. I'm trying to reach the high point which is much further north. After going south on Walker for about a mile, you turn left onto a logging/snowmobile trail which heads southest to the railroad tracks and base of the ridge. My original plan was to walk a very minor logging road north from there, somehow ford a swollen Presque Isle Brook and ascend to the notch north of the peak. One of the local MFS guys (thanks VL) suggested i follow the bigger logging road further south to a "bridge" across the brook and come in from a longer approach to the notch south of the peak.
The road in was actually pretty good even after the rain until i hit serious beaver work which had flooded and washed out the road at the brook-no way thru this-parked, added several miles to the hike and got very wet feet crossing the beaver lake. I got to my planned start point, took a snowmobile trail for about a mile north along the base of the ridge and headed up. It was super wet with lots of spring brooks and bogs, but the going was decent under leaden skies and 35 degrees with no wind. Almost no snow left, but in fog from about 1000' to the top. Top was a small, treed knob with no views. Wildlife-fox, 2 racoons, lots of deer/moose sign. I was able to pretty much fly down the mountain-that perfect fairly open moderately graded stuff.
The soup lifted around 9 and i was able to see Squapan by looking down the RR bed as i left the area. Back to Ashland, pick up a few greasy homemade donuts, gas the Forester and back down Rt 11, thru Knowles Corner, cut over to Rt 159 north of Patten, head past Shin Pond (near north entrance to Baxter) to the Huber Rd--the "big" hike of the day was to be
Beetle-1670'--this was a peak i originally had NO idea how to reach. The obvious way was thru 6 Mile gate into NMW west of Ashland and then down the Pinkham Rd which many miles later comes tantalizingly close to Beetle, but a very wet stretch of land means no roads toward Beetle. With help from NMW (Thanks AC) and the forester for the area(AH), I used the Huber Rd to get near Beetle. The Huber is in very good shape for the first 10-12 miles and pretty good shape for the next 6-8.
Then things got very confusing-i had beta from the forester and a friend on this Board along with Delorme, topos, and copy of sat pics. Even so, the way from the Huber to Beetle was really iffy (and i do mean really)-so many roads, several signs missing and of course the last few "roads" never had any. I was lucky to chose correctly at several intersections and finally was on the rather small,not well used Beetle Mt Rd which splits just south of the mountain and goes along either side. I edged the Forester thru some wicked puddles and flushed about 1/2 dozen Spruce Grouse and an equal number of deer., but about 1/2 mile south of the peak, the #$%^& beavers were at it again with a long, flooded stretch of road. Had to park-this time over 2 road miles short of my planned start.
I wandered uphill, took the fork which headed around to the west side of Beetle and tried to enjoy my walk-now sunny and actually hot--a real sense of being pretty far from civilization here. I soon saw the fire tower on Beetle (support structure and platform only-no cab) standing out against the sky only about 0.4 miles away-so close, but the way directly there was steep and thick and i planned to use a longer approach thru old logging areas. On the way by, i checked out the start of the old tower trail-easy to see, but very overgrown. About another 1/4 mile up the road, i headed thru old logging area-decent with only briars as a problem--well, "this is going to be an east one" says i.
Soon thereafter i hit the a 0.2 mile stretch from hell, steep, thick, wet, but worst of all with huge interlocking blowdowns. Lots of horizontal slabbing to go a few feet higher, a fair amount of blood spilled, and many oaths later i had better going as i hit the summit ridge headed toward the tower from the west side.
BillDC had asked me to watch for "stuff' on this ascent so with my nose to the ground, i found several sets of wires headed for the tower about 0.15 miles directly west on the semi open rocky ridge. I think these came up the old tower trail, but i didn't see any when i looked lower down. There were 3 distinct sets of wire, two bare single strand runs that went through insulators now and then and ran on trees or dead tree trunks made into poles. There were numerous 2 piece, 6 sided porcelain insulators--looked like very thick benzene rings
. The 3rd wire run looked newer and was wire covered with black insulation-more typical of what you see now. It terminated in a rectangular metal switchbox on the ground next to the tower.
At the peak is the tower skeleton with a platform. The old wooded cab lies in a crushed heap to the east of the tower. There's also a very cool "ground cab" building on a log base which is badly deteriorated. Very neat stuff, i should have brought a camera this time. Other than the usual glass, guywire type rubble, the only thing i found were a number of 6" long, 1" diameter metal rods encased in a cylinders of what looked like a black cement sheath-no clue.
The woods have grown up into the tower skeleton and only with effort was i able to climb the ladder--wow-great 360 view and spectacular look south at peaks in Baxter. I felt this was a high effort, high reward peak-tuff drive in, some ugliness going up, but fun stuff on top and excellent view from the tower.
Descent was thru same small ring of hell (no obvious way to bypass it). As i staggered thru the thinner stuff down low, i almost bumped into a large moose, the first of 3 such encounters on the way back to the car.
The walk out was done in zombie mode, but with a very good feeling-warmth, sun, isolation, bathed in relaxing brain chemicals. The 3 1/2 hours out the dirt roads and from Shin Pond to home were.............super long day (about 16 1/2 hours), but well worth it
jim
After a day of heavy rains in much of Maine, not sure what conditions i'll find for a fairly ambitious set of hikes; relatively little info about either one--3+ hrs on Rt95, off at Smyra Mills, Rts 212 and 11 to Ashland (looking very wet everywhere), then east on 163 toward Mapleton to the Walker Siding Rd (it's signed "Saponic") I'm trying to hike
Squapan-1495'--The "normal" hike on Squapan is to the fire tower on the southern end of the ridge. I'm trying to reach the high point which is much further north. After going south on Walker for about a mile, you turn left onto a logging/snowmobile trail which heads southest to the railroad tracks and base of the ridge. My original plan was to walk a very minor logging road north from there, somehow ford a swollen Presque Isle Brook and ascend to the notch north of the peak. One of the local MFS guys (thanks VL) suggested i follow the bigger logging road further south to a "bridge" across the brook and come in from a longer approach to the notch south of the peak.
The road in was actually pretty good even after the rain until i hit serious beaver work which had flooded and washed out the road at the brook-no way thru this-parked, added several miles to the hike and got very wet feet crossing the beaver lake. I got to my planned start point, took a snowmobile trail for about a mile north along the base of the ridge and headed up. It was super wet with lots of spring brooks and bogs, but the going was decent under leaden skies and 35 degrees with no wind. Almost no snow left, but in fog from about 1000' to the top. Top was a small, treed knob with no views. Wildlife-fox, 2 racoons, lots of deer/moose sign. I was able to pretty much fly down the mountain-that perfect fairly open moderately graded stuff.
The soup lifted around 9 and i was able to see Squapan by looking down the RR bed as i left the area. Back to Ashland, pick up a few greasy homemade donuts, gas the Forester and back down Rt 11, thru Knowles Corner, cut over to Rt 159 north of Patten, head past Shin Pond (near north entrance to Baxter) to the Huber Rd--the "big" hike of the day was to be
Beetle-1670'--this was a peak i originally had NO idea how to reach. The obvious way was thru 6 Mile gate into NMW west of Ashland and then down the Pinkham Rd which many miles later comes tantalizingly close to Beetle, but a very wet stretch of land means no roads toward Beetle. With help from NMW (Thanks AC) and the forester for the area(AH), I used the Huber Rd to get near Beetle. The Huber is in very good shape for the first 10-12 miles and pretty good shape for the next 6-8.
Then things got very confusing-i had beta from the forester and a friend on this Board along with Delorme, topos, and copy of sat pics. Even so, the way from the Huber to Beetle was really iffy (and i do mean really)-so many roads, several signs missing and of course the last few "roads" never had any. I was lucky to chose correctly at several intersections and finally was on the rather small,not well used Beetle Mt Rd which splits just south of the mountain and goes along either side. I edged the Forester thru some wicked puddles and flushed about 1/2 dozen Spruce Grouse and an equal number of deer., but about 1/2 mile south of the peak, the #$%^& beavers were at it again with a long, flooded stretch of road. Had to park-this time over 2 road miles short of my planned start.
I wandered uphill, took the fork which headed around to the west side of Beetle and tried to enjoy my walk-now sunny and actually hot--a real sense of being pretty far from civilization here. I soon saw the fire tower on Beetle (support structure and platform only-no cab) standing out against the sky only about 0.4 miles away-so close, but the way directly there was steep and thick and i planned to use a longer approach thru old logging areas. On the way by, i checked out the start of the old tower trail-easy to see, but very overgrown. About another 1/4 mile up the road, i headed thru old logging area-decent with only briars as a problem--well, "this is going to be an east one" says i.
Soon thereafter i hit the a 0.2 mile stretch from hell, steep, thick, wet, but worst of all with huge interlocking blowdowns. Lots of horizontal slabbing to go a few feet higher, a fair amount of blood spilled, and many oaths later i had better going as i hit the summit ridge headed toward the tower from the west side.
BillDC had asked me to watch for "stuff' on this ascent so with my nose to the ground, i found several sets of wires headed for the tower about 0.15 miles directly west on the semi open rocky ridge. I think these came up the old tower trail, but i didn't see any when i looked lower down. There were 3 distinct sets of wire, two bare single strand runs that went through insulators now and then and ran on trees or dead tree trunks made into poles. There were numerous 2 piece, 6 sided porcelain insulators--looked like very thick benzene rings
. The 3rd wire run looked newer and was wire covered with black insulation-more typical of what you see now. It terminated in a rectangular metal switchbox on the ground next to the tower.At the peak is the tower skeleton with a platform. The old wooded cab lies in a crushed heap to the east of the tower. There's also a very cool "ground cab" building on a log base which is badly deteriorated. Very neat stuff, i should have brought a camera this time. Other than the usual glass, guywire type rubble, the only thing i found were a number of 6" long, 1" diameter metal rods encased in a cylinders of what looked like a black cement sheath-no clue.
The woods have grown up into the tower skeleton and only with effort was i able to climb the ladder--wow-great 360 view and spectacular look south at peaks in Baxter. I felt this was a high effort, high reward peak-tuff drive in, some ugliness going up, but fun stuff on top and excellent view from the tower.
Descent was thru same small ring of hell (no obvious way to bypass it). As i staggered thru the thinner stuff down low, i almost bumped into a large moose, the first of 3 such encounters on the way back to the car.
The walk out was done in zombie mode, but with a very good feeling-warmth, sun, isolation, bathed in relaxing brain chemicals. The 3 1/2 hours out the dirt roads and from Shin Pond to home were.............super long day (about 16 1/2 hours), but well worth it
jim
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