Sunday June 18, 2005

Elephant - Maine

What better way to celebrate Geri's 45th B-Day than a bushwack in the rain! Thanks to advice from Damon and Jonny - two fellow hikers from VFTT, it was a faily easy hike.

This is the route we took today. The red line is our path on the ascent. The blue line is our descent.

Directions to the trailhead: From Bethel, head north on Routes 2/5. In Hanover take a left onto Route 5 and follow into Andover and take a right onto Route 120. From the intersection of Routes 5/120 follow Route 120 1/2 mile over the Ellis River and take left onto South Arm Road. Follow this road passing a scenic view at 6.5 miles, the AT trail at 7.7 miles, the Clear Water Brook at 9.9 miles, to the logging road at 10.1 miles. Take a right onto the logging road. Stay left at .4 miles and bear right at 1.1 miles. There is a bad washout of the left side of the road at 2.1 miles. Park at a clearing at 3.0 miles. Now on foot, head up the road another .1 miles and bear left off of the main road. There should be a small carin here marking the way. Follow this for @ .25 miles to the height of land where you will see a small carin on your left marking the start of the bushwack.

About 50 - 100 feet from the carin, bear left where the herd path splits. Follow the small heard path up to a clearing and skirt around the hard wood staying to the right. Follow what ever herd paths you find all the way to the summit. You may encounter some thick spruce, but keep going and you will pick up another herd path which eventually leads you right to the canister.

Time to summit: @ 80 minutes

A more detailed look at the bushwack paths.

A 3-D view of our hike to the summit.

The road was a bit muddy as you can see our tire marks. We drove the extra .1 mile to wher the hike starts.

Teh hike starts by going up this logging road - see the small carin on the left.

Geri decked out in her finest rain gear. You can barely see the mountian in the background.

About 1/4 mile from the start a herd path is marked on the left.

This is the carin marking the herd path and a view of how it starts out.

A few minutes later the path is not as clear as you head towrds the trees.late.

@ 30 minutes from the start you reach a wide swarth that was cut. At this point we went right about 100 feet to where we found a herd path that we started following up the hill.

At the next najor clearing crossed to the right staying in the woods along the cleared area. Next we came to a area of thick spruce that we forced our way through until coming back out into old growth like this. Notice the boundry markings.

80 minutes after starting we followed a herd path right to the canister.

We really thought this would be harder than it was. However the return trip was :< We ventured too far to the right into thick spruce and a wet boggy section.

The rain came and went most of the hike, but didn't dampen our spirits.

As you can see our rain gear was tested.

Our entry in the log book - notice the entry from Damon above ours.

On our drive home we saw a lot of wildlife including this fox pup.

After we pulled over to the side of the road and shut the engine off he decided to come say hello. Not only did he come over to the car he went under it! A mile down the road we saw and adult fox, and shortly after that a large doe that ran down the road for some distance in front of us.

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