The New Whitman Ridge Trail

Our nice weather today (before our humdinger of an isolated thunderstorm) prompted me to take a quick hike up the new Whitman Ridge trail.  The Maine Conservation Corps crews have been hard at work for a few weeks and have about a week and a half left to go in this stint.  The new trail starts between Togue Pond and the road to Denny.  It runs through the wood for a short bit before it crosses the road to Denny and continues up a second old road where I remember my parents cutting firewood when I was a kid.

Eventually, the trail splits off and starts winding around the southwest side of Whitman Ridge (or Whitman Mountain, depending on what map you look at).  It stops at two very pretty overlooks over Perch Pond and continues on toward Upper Pond.  I'm not sure yet where it ultimately stops- I ran into one of the crews and decided I probably shouldn't make a nuisance of myself.  (Interesting enough, the fellow I talked to also wasn't sure where the trail was going to stop...)

The trail is definitely a work in progress, and I'm glad it's still flagged.  (I had to look for flags a few times where the crews hadn't done much cutting.)  I think it'll be a nice one when it's complete, although I have to make the same comment about this trail that I did about the Black Overlook to Deboullie trail: all of the saplings have been cut off at 1-2" above ground level.  They make for fairly slippery and treacherous footing in hiking boots, but in my Vibrams, they're downright dangerous.  They're low enough that they get covered by leaves and pine needles, and I have a nice bruise on the arch of my foot from one I stepped on today.  I just couldn't see it, even though I was watching the trail pretty closely.  I probably won't try running that trail until I'm a lot more familiar with it.

I also took a quick spin over to Crater Pond today- I had forgotten how pretty that pond is...  And I stopped at the bog on my way back to endure ridicule from a deer- ptttttbbbb.