Flat Mountain Pond Trail - in or out of Wilderness & bikeable?

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srhigham

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Essex Co., Mass.
Folks,

Is Flat Mountain Pond Trail, from Jose's Bridge to Flat Mountain Ponds, considered to be in the Sandwich Range Wilderness? (It forms a boundary of the wilderness.)

If not in the Wilderness, is it bikeable (not for sport, as an approach to the pond.)

Thanks
 
1.6 is the Wilderness boundary, and it's a steep descent down to Whiteface River..only can remember maybe half a mile or so with logging road bike able section..but it's been a few years..someone will sure chime in...
 
It's outside until you get to the pond. I've seen bike tracks up there before so it's bikable for someone.
 
The trail and the shelter are just outside the Wilderness. I rode it years ago, but I would only recommend biking if you enjoy the challenge. It won't save you much time (if any) over walking.
 
The trail and the shelter are just outside the Wilderness. I rode it years ago, but I would only recommend biking if you enjoy the challenge. It won't save you much time (if any) over walking.

Call it bike-hike.
 
Years ago somebody on VFTT posted a link to the documents that defined the Pemi wilderness (and possibly others, but that was the one I was interested in at the time). On a map, the boundaries follow the obvious ridgelines (e.g., Franconia ridge), but in fact they're defined as being X feet away from the ridge, where I forget what X was but it's just enough to be reasonably certain that the (preexisting) trail never crosses the boundary even though the trail may wriggle to either side of the ridgeline. There are also a couple of carve-outs around pre-existing structures, Guyot Shelter being one that shows plainly on the map.

A glance at the USFS maps shows that the same situation pertains to the Sandwich wilderness. Flat Pond Shelter is inside another carve-out. The US Forest Service maps show the trails, e.g. most of Flat Mountain Pond Trail, adjacent to the boundary, and draws them in their correct relation, i.e, the Flat Mountain Pond trail is outside the boundary until past the Flat Pond Shelter carve-out. (The boundary crossing happens when the trail has wandered west from the shelter and has turned north again to approach the west shore of the pond.)
 
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