marty
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- Apr 9, 2004
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After hiking in cold, wind driven rains and flooded trails last weekend, I was looking for something a little saner on this one. It had rained hard all day Saturday up at our camp in Rangeley, ME, so I decided that Sunday morning would be a good time to do a “walk about” on the maze of log roads that go up Bemis Mountain behind our camp. Walk about, as you may know, is a term that Crocodile Dundee used when he went wandering.
I parked my truck on the intersection of Upper Dam Road and the Bemis Mountain Road. The Bemis Mountain Road goes from Upper Dam Road to the South Arm Road near Richardson Lake. It has lots of forks and turnoff roads and someone could definitely get quite lost. Fortunately, I have learned these roads from intensely studying the DeLorme Maine Atlas, along with a bit of trial and error.
Outside, conditions were cool and cloudy, about 52 degrees or so. I start up the steep road and soon have to duck under a bunch of trees hanging way down over the road. This combined with a really nasty washout suggests that this road would not be passable for a truck or car. It would be easily navigable for a snowmobile or ATV, however. As the road was in otherwise good condition, it gave me a chance to hike hard and fast, probably in the 3-3.5 mph range.
All along the road there were streams totally churning due to the heavy rains. The sound was almost deafening and some of the waterfalls were beautiful. Fortunately, these streams all stayed just within their banks so I did not have to do any real wading on the road. One thing I noticed about the road was that its character was much different than I remember from my last visit a couple of years go. Perhaps because the area has received less use due to the road conditions, everything seems to have taken on a much wilder and therefore more appealing appearance.
The road continues with several steep ups and downs and a few viewpoints of the Western Maine mountains and Rangeley Lakes. I veered off the main road, heading left to a clearcut with that I remember had spectacular views and where I had seen moose on two occasions. What I saw was that the conifer saplings had grown to about 15 feet and blocked most of the views. I found moose, deer, bear and coyote scat in this area (and some shotgun shells), but I saw no wildlife, except for a very plump partridge.
Just below the clearcut, I took a familiar side road that that has a sweet view of Mooselookmeguntic Lake. This view is very similar to the Height of Land viewpoint off Route 17, that some of you may have seen. Unfortunately, as I got about ¾ of the way, the road turned into a marsh. As I did not want to wade through knee deep water, I decided to forgo the views and turn around.
I then started heading back, stopping at a moose wallow (no moose today) and down another road to a clearcut whose views were also partially obstructed by rapidly growing trees. At that point, it was time to head back to camp for chores. Total hike time was about 3 hours.
While I don't typically find log roads as enjoyable as hiking trails or wandering through the woods, I found this to be a very good one given the conditions. I got some views (although not as many as expected), a good workout, NO BLACK FLIES and lots of rediscovery.
Regards,
Marty
I parked my truck on the intersection of Upper Dam Road and the Bemis Mountain Road. The Bemis Mountain Road goes from Upper Dam Road to the South Arm Road near Richardson Lake. It has lots of forks and turnoff roads and someone could definitely get quite lost. Fortunately, I have learned these roads from intensely studying the DeLorme Maine Atlas, along with a bit of trial and error.
Outside, conditions were cool and cloudy, about 52 degrees or so. I start up the steep road and soon have to duck under a bunch of trees hanging way down over the road. This combined with a really nasty washout suggests that this road would not be passable for a truck or car. It would be easily navigable for a snowmobile or ATV, however. As the road was in otherwise good condition, it gave me a chance to hike hard and fast, probably in the 3-3.5 mph range.
All along the road there were streams totally churning due to the heavy rains. The sound was almost deafening and some of the waterfalls were beautiful. Fortunately, these streams all stayed just within their banks so I did not have to do any real wading on the road. One thing I noticed about the road was that its character was much different than I remember from my last visit a couple of years go. Perhaps because the area has received less use due to the road conditions, everything seems to have taken on a much wilder and therefore more appealing appearance.
The road continues with several steep ups and downs and a few viewpoints of the Western Maine mountains and Rangeley Lakes. I veered off the main road, heading left to a clearcut with that I remember had spectacular views and where I had seen moose on two occasions. What I saw was that the conifer saplings had grown to about 15 feet and blocked most of the views. I found moose, deer, bear and coyote scat in this area (and some shotgun shells), but I saw no wildlife, except for a very plump partridge.
Just below the clearcut, I took a familiar side road that that has a sweet view of Mooselookmeguntic Lake. This view is very similar to the Height of Land viewpoint off Route 17, that some of you may have seen. Unfortunately, as I got about ¾ of the way, the road turned into a marsh. As I did not want to wade through knee deep water, I decided to forgo the views and turn around.
I then started heading back, stopping at a moose wallow (no moose today) and down another road to a clearcut whose views were also partially obstructed by rapidly growing trees. At that point, it was time to head back to camp for chores. Total hike time was about 3 hours.
While I don't typically find log roads as enjoyable as hiking trails or wandering through the woods, I found this to be a very good one given the conditions. I got some views (although not as many as expected), a good workout, NO BLACK FLIES and lots of rediscovery.
Regards,
Marty
