Plane crash on Fort: article in the Globe

I'm passing this on as interesting reading, not for an ethical debate about "promoting" visiting Fort.

On remote Maine mountainside, WWII wreckage left as informal monument

A bit of Aircraft debris next to Joyce as she inspects her spruce wounds on top of Fort

Just read that on the bus ride into Boston. I did not know all the details behind the crash.

Hope to be finishing the New England Hundred Highest on Fort later this year.

Marty

There are a few airplane crash remnant sites in New England, most being much easier to access. I have seen a couple. It's a curiosity at best, since all human remains have been respectfully removed long ago. Most of them make for an interesting non-peak objective. It's the first time I've ever seen such mangled wreckages.

As many know (i.e. I am revealing no secrets), you can see the tail-section from the summit of No. Brother, esp. when the sun is right and glinting from it.

The 'whack from the Fort summit is not long and there is a faint herd-path, but if you lose it, as I did returning to the Fort summit on a solo hike, you'll find yourself in wall-to-wall spruce - the slowest, most miserable variety of hiking. I too found the wreckage somber.

I agree that this is not a good hike to do solo and I did nearly step in some crevices in rock jumbles when I also lost the herd path between Fort and No. Brother. (Better lucky than smart, sometimes.)

The Hikers said:

A bit of Aircraft debris next to Joyce as she inspects her spruce wounds on top of Fort

Click to expand...

When we were there several years ago the radio was built into the cairn. We enjoyed listening to a couple innings of a Red Sox game before we moved on back to North Brother. Appears that someone removed it to replace the batteries.

On a more serious note, be careful with your magnetic bearings on this bushwhack. If you take a bearing or course from North Brother it could be distorted by iron in the mountain.

... those of you "navigating" by GPS, please leave the batteries in the radio ...

I hiked over to the crash site for the first time in the early 90's. We had gotten a late start and were over where the airplane first impacted the mountain. There was a propellor embedded in the rocks and you could see a large area where vegetation has never grown back probably because of fire and fuel. It is very spooky on that mountain late in the day with no one else around.

Amicus said:

As many know (i.e. I am revealing no secrets), you can see the tail-section from the summit of No. Brother, esp. when the sun is right and glinting from it.

Click to expand...

Center of photo: http://wikiloc.com/13012/111998/14635_full.jpg

Here are a couple of closer shots of the wreckage from 2007:

http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/2685778680094558203zvJbzo

http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/2986031600094558203adOGjg

It is not too straightforward to find the wreckage from the summit - we never would have found it if we hadn't noticed some survey flagging leading in the right direction from the summit. It was an interesting side trip, and it made for some real thick navigating back to the herd path on our return trip to N. Brother.