Date: 2009-08-05
From: Third Mountain Trail ME

To: W. Branch Pleasant River ME
Miles today: 8.4
Weather: overcast clouds

Bugsy and Burly Girl are back in Maine ready to 'chew' into more of the 100 Mile Wilderness. We are accessing this portion of the trail from Millinocket. There are no other towns in the area that have a motel and restaurants. And we are still biding our time for the 'perfect' day to hike Mt. Katahdin. This could be Saturday or Sunday. Millinocket is the closest town to Baxter State Park and Mt. Katahdin.Access:South--From Millinocket, we drove south on Rt. 11 for 40 minutes to Katahdin Ironworks logging access road. We finally found (at the Millinocket Chamber of Commerce) the 2 for 1 coupon ($10 vs $20) that would let us into this wilderness area.It is 7 miles on a good gravel road from Rt 11 to the Katadhin Ironworks access gate. Chuck was able to give us information on the roads to our future trails and which were open or closed. From the gate it is 7 miles to Chairback Mt. Road which comes in on the left about 1/2 mi after the AT crossing. We went 2 mi on Chairback Mt. Road to a new parking area for Third Mt. Trail. North--From the gate at Katahdin Ironworks go 6.2 miles on KI Road to the parking area for Gulf Hagas and the AT. An access trail leads .2 mi to where the AT crosses the Pleasant River. Parking here for many cars.The Hike:This hike is part of a 17 mile hike between 2 gravel logging roads. The Appalachian Mt. Club (AMC) recently purchased a large area of land in the Katahdin Ironworks/Jo Mary Wilderness. They are developing this as a recreation area and are building some new lodges and cabins. It is called the 'Maine Woods Initiative' which "seeks to address the ecological and economic needs of the Maine Woods by supporting local forest products jobs and traditional recreation...". This means that in addition to building lodges and trails, the AMC has a major logging operation going on. We learned that they recently made a new trail, the Third Mountain Trail, which intersects the AT about halfway between Third and Fourth Mountains on the AT between the logging roads. The Third Mountain Trail up to the AT is 1.4 miles which we were able to cover in about 45 min. It climbs about 1,000'. It appears that an old trail to West Chairback Pond has been eliminated due to logging operations. When we reached the AT, our hiking time slowed dramatically due to...MUD, ROCKS, ROOTS, BOGS... We climbed over several peaks with partial views. There were more peaks than were shown on our elevation map and we really couldn't tell where we were until we reached Columbus Mountain (there was a sign). The ups and downs of Columbus Mountain were steep in parts. We stopped in at Chairback Gap Lean To for a snack and read the journal. We read entries from some NOBOS and SOBOS that we had met last week. Heading north from the Lean To was a disaster! There were no trail markings and we wandered for a while amongst several trails. After some exploring, we followed the trail down to the marked spring/swamp. There is a major need for some log bridges in this area. More than once the mud went to the top of our boots. The climb up Chairback Mountain was steep and the length of the top is much longer than the trail map would indicate, that that was nice as we had open views for quite a while. There are some great views from the ledges along the peak. We timed this perfectly for a lunch break. Going down from our lunch break was a major shock! The trail fell precipitously, not something that went well with digestion! It looked like a landslide had occurred here at some point. Again, the rocks of the cliff that we went down were poorly marked and we had to follow some cairns, probably constructed by fellow hikers. We made our way to the seat of Chairback Mountain, a relatively level area on exposed rock which gave us a great view back to the cliffs where we had just dined. Next was a relatively easy descent and a 1.5 mi long area of ups and downs with a lot of mud and bogs!! We met another 10-Year-Plan hiker who is almost done his trek. He is going south and will finish at Pinkham Notch. Congratulatins Gray Beard!The next mile was a descent to KI Road on good, soft pine needle trail...finally. After we crossed KI Road we followed a tributary stream for about 1/2 mi on a great, level path. Our poor knees needed this ending! When we reached the West Branch of the Pleasant River it became a little muddy again. Luckily we were finished our hike.Bugsy and Burly Girl...doing the AT one day at a time...