Sinclair Trail in Mahoosucs

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solo_hiker

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This trail appears on the 1983 Shelburne quad, running from the Peabody Brook Tr. up to Page Pond. It's not mentioned in the Guide v25 or 26, nor is there any info on the Lost Trails site although they do note its existence. Anybody know anything about the condition of this abandoned trail?

Thanks Solo
 
There actually is an entry on Lost Trails (http://world.std.com/~Whites/Mahoosuc.html):

Sinclair Trail
Locale: Mahoosuc
Condition: No Report
Maintainer: Unknown
Entry Added: May 26, 2000

An excellent source of lost and abandoned trails are "new" topo maps. The topography may be exceedingly correct, but the other information on the maps is often much less accurate. Such is the case with the Maptech NH quads, which happily show this trail branching left off of the Peabody Brook Trail just north of the North Road. It meanders northward staying to the east of Leadmine Brook. At its nearest approach to the brook, it crosses the Mahoosuc Trail just east of Page Pond. Here the "New Trail to Page Pond" continues north to the Success Pond Road. My assumption is that this is a different trail. My reasoning for this lies in that the route south of the Mahoosuc Trail is redundantly labelled as the "Sinclair Trail" three times. North of the Mahoosuc Trail, it is nameless. Searches in all AMC Guides available to me reveal no mentions of this trail.

Topozone shows the (map) trail as well, indicating the use of a common underlying USGS sheet.

I did some exploring in this region in the spring of 2003. I found what might have been the old route off the Peabody Brook Trail, but soon encountered ice damage that obliterated the route. It would be worth another trip or two to see if the traces can be found.
 
There has been extensive ice storm harvesting up in the area of the former trail which would have obscured any traces of the old route, I believe that it is an old logging road, that may have been used by local snowmobilers to get to pond.

I believe an aquaintance found a very large Berol crystal sticking out of a banking along the route years ago.
 
Sinclair Tr.

I know what you mean "obscured by ice damage"! Thanks for the info, I'll look for another route.

Solo
 
I hiked that trail when I climbed the Trident maybe 10 years ago, it was a marked snowmobile trail then. If it is still maintained, any storm damage was probably removed.
 
Went down the "trail" from the Mahoosuc Ridge today. Impossible to snowmobile to the pond now, although one could get to approx 2100' as it is a nightmare up there, had trouble following it (woods next to it were better but I wanted to follow it as closely as possible). It's an OK logging road from 2100' to 1450', then it's recent logging country down to 1250'. One could easily drive to 1250' with a low clearance car. I didn't see any posted signs anywhere but it's got to be private near the road?
 
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