success pond road status?

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blaze

Active member
Joined
Jun 16, 2008
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Location
Scarborough, Maine
Hi - is Success Pond Road open on the Berlin NH side? Was hoping to hike Goose Eye and Carlo soon, but I have been told that the road is closed.

I checked the WMNF Forest Road Status page but Success Pond Road is not listed there.

Thank you!
Jonathan
 
On July 16th the eastern (ME) end was gated. The western (Berlin, NH) end was open. It's very well-signed at that end and at all the trailhead side roads. The road itself is in as good condition as it gets (in other words, you can do about 15-20mph on it).
 
Success Pond Rd is washed out right at the Speck Pond Trail trailhead: Sucker Brook now flows through a vertical-sided gully five feet deep and fifteen feet wide, with the culvert pipe visible off to the side of the road and some of the larger abutment boulders still in place.

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I drove the road from Berlin to that point in a compact car without any real difficulty. I saw a pickup truck arrive from the other direction, don't know how much clearance is actually necessary on that end.

Do exercise a bit more than the usual care, there are a couple of holes (culverts now partially overt) that'd certainly cost you a wheel.
 
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I was up the main road nearly to the pond, it is all passable by car but there are 2 one-lane sections between Carlo Col and Speck Pond Trails and maybe 3 other places where there are cones at small washouts.

You might want to avoid this road if you have dental fillings as the first couple miles will shake them out :)

The culvert at the beginning of Margarethe?? Rd is half collapsed and if this was NF it would be closed, however ATVs and 4wds are happily crossing.
 
That would be the Mary Grande' Road, named after an old time lumber camp cooklady..comes out on the East Milan Road just north of Stearns Brook Bridge..unfortunately it is gated on the EMR end...very wild section on a plateau with great views of the surrounding mts and a very high success rate for hunters..Lefty E
 
..comes out on the East Milan Road just north of Stearns Brook Bridge..unfortunately it is gated on the EMR end...
Yup, when I hiked up to the beacon on Oak Hill I drove all the way around by Success Pd to reach the spur to the beacon - no doubt would have been easier just to walk from the gate!
 
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