BillDC
New member
To arrive at Kibby, we took the Spencer road off of Route 201 south of Jackman and headed west to around mile 28 and then went left on the Beaudry road. We went about 6.5 mi to a left that goes up to a small clearing (in about .4 mi). The trailhead is on the left. It was another cloudy day and views looked unfavorable, so we had to invent another form of entertainment. We decided to locate and follow/bushwack the original watchman's trail to the top.
Referencing the 1932 topo map of this area, the original trail came up off of what would seem is now the Beaudry road and went straight up east just to the north of the summit and then turned right and went south to the summit. Today, the beginning section has been recently logged, so the beginning portion of the trail would be difficult to find. We decided to start a bit further up.
We followed the current trail, not up the mountain, but to the spur trail that takes you to the last watchman's camp which sits just above the cut area. Just behind the wood shed, there is an old trail that goes north a short distance. Our hope was that this trail would eventually run into the old watchman's trail. It was badly overgrown, but the treadway was visible, so we wacked our way in. We wandered our way around a while, including following an old tote road for a while, but we did locate a single phone line insulator. This was a good indication that we had indeed found the original watchman's trail. At this point, we needed to head directly east. We searched for the next clue as to where to start east. Only after I unearthed 50 feet or so of phone line did we see where to go next. We headed east and up.
Continuing to look for phone line in this section, we ran out of luck. The treadway was non-existent and we were about to give up until we saw that the phone line was actually still in the trees in this section! There were a number of very old rotting trees still holding up the line. We followed this for a while getting confused once or twice in an old stream bed, but we were successful in climbing the old trail up to the first portion of the current trail. The old trail crosses the existing trail on its way up, but we needed to figure out where. We did see an old treadway so we went for it. Shortly in, we located more phone line, so we continued on. The trail was weak at best and the only clues along the way were periodic phone line. We climbed and finally reached the current trail again on its way up from the switchback. This would be the end of the bushwack as the rest of the trail follows the current trail which is in good shape and open.
At the summit, the 15 foot observation tower (former fire tower) still stands. The tower is pretty wobbly and the platform continues to rot, but it is still usable. We had only broken cloud views, but could periodically see all of the boundary mountains. The Kibby wind farm is predominate in the south and seems to go on forever. Having been sufficiently entertained by tight spruce, hands and knees climbing, and marshy moss/mud, we followed the current trail down, which aside from some spring wet areas, was in good shape.
If anyone knows when the current trail up Kibby was built, I'd love to know and any history about it.
Some photos of the trip are here -
https://picasaweb.google.com/BillDC3/KibbyMountainME5232012TrailBushwack?authuser=0&feat=directlink
Bill
Referencing the 1932 topo map of this area, the original trail came up off of what would seem is now the Beaudry road and went straight up east just to the north of the summit and then turned right and went south to the summit. Today, the beginning section has been recently logged, so the beginning portion of the trail would be difficult to find. We decided to start a bit further up.
We followed the current trail, not up the mountain, but to the spur trail that takes you to the last watchman's camp which sits just above the cut area. Just behind the wood shed, there is an old trail that goes north a short distance. Our hope was that this trail would eventually run into the old watchman's trail. It was badly overgrown, but the treadway was visible, so we wacked our way in. We wandered our way around a while, including following an old tote road for a while, but we did locate a single phone line insulator. This was a good indication that we had indeed found the original watchman's trail. At this point, we needed to head directly east. We searched for the next clue as to where to start east. Only after I unearthed 50 feet or so of phone line did we see where to go next. We headed east and up.
Continuing to look for phone line in this section, we ran out of luck. The treadway was non-existent and we were about to give up until we saw that the phone line was actually still in the trees in this section! There were a number of very old rotting trees still holding up the line. We followed this for a while getting confused once or twice in an old stream bed, but we were successful in climbing the old trail up to the first portion of the current trail. The old trail crosses the existing trail on its way up, but we needed to figure out where. We did see an old treadway so we went for it. Shortly in, we located more phone line, so we continued on. The trail was weak at best and the only clues along the way were periodic phone line. We climbed and finally reached the current trail again on its way up from the switchback. This would be the end of the bushwack as the rest of the trail follows the current trail which is in good shape and open.
At the summit, the 15 foot observation tower (former fire tower) still stands. The tower is pretty wobbly and the platform continues to rot, but it is still usable. We had only broken cloud views, but could periodically see all of the boundary mountains. The Kibby wind farm is predominate in the south and seems to go on forever. Having been sufficiently entertained by tight spruce, hands and knees climbing, and marshy moss/mud, we followed the current trail down, which aside from some spring wet areas, was in good shape.
If anyone knows when the current trail up Kibby was built, I'd love to know and any history about it.
Some photos of the trip are here -
https://picasaweb.google.com/BillDC3/KibbyMountainME5232012TrailBushwack?authuser=0&feat=directlink
Bill
