Jason Berard
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- Oct 28, 2006
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Greg, Jason and I all met at the Tea Bird Cafe in Berlin early on Tuesday to fuel up before our proposed hike of Success and Goose Eye. Success Pond Road was easy to find, and in good shape. When we got to the first trailhead we decided to do the loop counterclockwise in case we bailed. We really wanted to do Success so we could go to the DC-3 crash site.
After dealing with the cars, we headed up the trail, which was in excellent shape, and easy to follow, contrary to warnings in the WMG. The first part of the trail is an easy walk on an old woods road. Further up, we began to get a taste of what the rest of the day would be like, as the trail was basically a brook the rest of the way. Soon we were at the outlook, which was well worth the short side trip.
Upon leaving the outlook the trail was even more waterlogged, and as much as I like to stay on the trail to minimize widening of the footbed, we had to make some detours to avoid sinking up to our thighs
! As we neared the junction with the AT, we came across the remnants of an old logging camp, with tons of cool artifacts including sled runners, pots, pieces of a couple old peavys, one of whick we could read "Orono, Maine" on the side of.
After the AT junction is where the trail became rediculuosly wet. I can't imagine being on the trail day after day with it looking like this....
For people who have been on this trail before, just to give you an idea of how wet it was, the bog bridges in the wettest section were under at least several inches of water..
Quickly, we were at the summit, where views were somewhat limited. We could see the Kilkenny Range to the west, but the Presi's were clouded over. We also had good views to the east over the rest of the Mahoosucs. The top of the mountain is COVERED with blueberries which were sooo good! Also there were mountain cranberries, and lots of alpine shrubs, which were past blooming, and I'm bad with ID if there aren't flowers. I bet this would be a beautiful summit in the spring with all those shrubs in bloom. We did see some bog laurel in bloom between the main summit and the south summit.
As we sat and ate lunch at the summit, a camp group came up from the south, and we watched them attempt, somewhat unsucessfully, the water covered, and somewhat unstable bog bridges. A couple kids went in over their knees, but they all seemed to be in good spirits.
After lunch, we headed off to find the DC-3 crash site. It was pretty interesting to sit there and think about what took place there about 50 plus years ago. Just before impact, the pilot saw the mountain ahead of him, and pulled the nose of the plane up to avoid a head on crash, and cut the power to the electrical system to prevent an explosion upon impact. If he had not done both these things, everyone on board would have died. Amazingly, all seven people survived the crash.
It seems that people have taken to signing the inside of the fuselage to mark their having visited the site. We found Daniel Doan had visited in 1966.
Back to the trail we went, and after retracing our steps, we decided to head back down the Success trail, as we all had a lot of driving to do to get home. Goose Eye will have to wait til next time......
After dealing with the cars, we headed up the trail, which was in excellent shape, and easy to follow, contrary to warnings in the WMG. The first part of the trail is an easy walk on an old woods road. Further up, we began to get a taste of what the rest of the day would be like, as the trail was basically a brook the rest of the way. Soon we were at the outlook, which was well worth the short side trip.
Upon leaving the outlook the trail was even more waterlogged, and as much as I like to stay on the trail to minimize widening of the footbed, we had to make some detours to avoid sinking up to our thighs
! As we neared the junction with the AT, we came across the remnants of an old logging camp, with tons of cool artifacts including sled runners, pots, pieces of a couple old peavys, one of whick we could read "Orono, Maine" on the side of.
After the AT junction is where the trail became rediculuosly wet. I can't imagine being on the trail day after day with it looking like this....
For people who have been on this trail before, just to give you an idea of how wet it was, the bog bridges in the wettest section were under at least several inches of water..
Quickly, we were at the summit, where views were somewhat limited. We could see the Kilkenny Range to the west, but the Presi's were clouded over. We also had good views to the east over the rest of the Mahoosucs. The top of the mountain is COVERED with blueberries which were sooo good! Also there were mountain cranberries, and lots of alpine shrubs, which were past blooming, and I'm bad with ID if there aren't flowers.
I bet this would be a beautiful summit in the spring with all those shrubs in bloom. We did see some bog laurel in bloom between the main summit and the south summit.As we sat and ate lunch at the summit, a camp group came up from the south, and we watched them attempt, somewhat unsucessfully, the water covered, and somewhat unstable bog bridges. A couple kids went in over their knees, but they all seemed to be in good spirits.
After lunch, we headed off to find the DC-3 crash site. It was pretty interesting to sit there and think about what took place there about 50 plus years ago. Just before impact, the pilot saw the mountain ahead of him, and pulled the nose of the plane up to avoid a head on crash, and cut the power to the electrical system to prevent an explosion upon impact. If he had not done both these things, everyone on board would have died. Amazingly, all seven people survived the crash.
It seems that people have taken to signing the inside of the fuselage to mark their having visited the site. We found Daniel Doan had visited in 1966.
Back to the trail we went, and after retracing our steps, we decided to head back down the Success trail, as we all had a lot of driving to do to get home. Goose Eye will have to wait til next time......
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