In honor of the heat wave:

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SpencerVT

Member
Joined
May 26, 2015
Messages
406
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Location
Brattleboro, Vermont
I climbed BOIL mountain -
along with Onion and Cow Ridge up in Maine. These three peaks could make quite a stew.
I want to extend thanks to 3000'+ elevations in Maine for actually not being terribly hot this weekend. It was probably 20 degrees cooler up there than where I live in Southern Vermont.
It seemed as though Boil and Onion could be reached from the Eustis Side via South Road, but I was hoping to access them from the Morton Cutoff / Tim Pond side since it was less driving mileage and I wanted to climb Cow Ridge.
In retrospect, I think it would have been better to just drive all the way around to Eustis to access Boil and Onion.

I left Brattleboro at 8AM and drove up to Tim Pond Road. I went down Tim Pond for a bazillion miles and then tried Elephant Head road to cut over to the log road that goes near Boil and Onion. This cut-over was overgrown and not passable.
Then I took the log road which goes on the other side of the Alder Stream opposite Elephant Head Road. This Log road was passable almost all the way to the Penobscot Indian Territory border where the West Branch of the Alder Stream crossing is. There were two boulders blocking the road where a stream went through and no bridge existed. From there the road went to hell, with slag, overgrowth and waterbar ditches making it impossible to drive. I rode my bike and had to walk it most of the way through this section it was so bad. After 3/4's of a mile or so, the road improved again and I was able to connect over to South Road and then take the North Branch Road up in between Onion and Boil. North Branch Road is overgrown with mostly tall grass, but if you were sufficiently out of your mind and didn't care about your car, you could indeed still drive up this road quite far. I did not see any washouts or anything other than very tall grass above a solid road bed beneath. It would probably look like a decent road in the early spring before everything grows.
A quick, convenient and mere 6 hours of travelling since I left my house, I finally commenced hiking.
I b-lined up Onion. It was steep and it was pretty damn hot, but it went Ok. At the top was a very old register dating back to 1986.

I then took the ridge over to Boil which was very pleasant, easy woods. Even the steep ascent of Boil wasn't bad. The woods should have been much, much worse for a mountain above 3500' in elevation with that level of steepness, but it was quite open the entire way.

Once I got down and biked back to my car, I drove out toward a log road which ascended part ways toward Cow Ridge. This log road went to hell a short ways up and was overgrown and impassable by about 2200'. It was 7:30 in the evening and finally starting to get to be a cooler temperature. I had heard the woods were good, so I decided to take the plunge knowing I would be bushwhacking in the dark. It was a lot of vertical gain, but wide-open heavenly fern woods. I made it to the summit at 9PM. I did not see any cows.
I could not find a jar despite tromping around everywhere on the tiny thick area comprising the summit. I made it back to my car at 10:48PM. I drove all the way home to Brattleboro, Vermont arriving by 3AM, totally exhausted.
I didn't wake up Sunday until 3:15 in the afternoon.

The bugs are still apocalyptic. However, these three mountains were nice woods and among the very coolest temperatures anyone could find in New England on Saturday. Not bad!
 
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