- Location
- Terra Firma
For those who don't know, I spent Columbus Day weekend in Maine. It wasn't intended as a wheeling trip -- in fact, I went up to Portland for a job interview and decided to press on to Lubec so I can lay claim to having been in the USA's easternmost town. From Lubec I went farther north on Route 1, to Calais.
And I noticed an anomoly -- where there was NOTHING shown on the official State of Maine highway map, the DeLorme "Maine Map and Guide" showed a road -- dotted -- that appears to be at least 100 MILES long, just a bit north of Calais and running west almost all the way back to Ellsworth (which is near Bar Harbor). I did some exploring, and I found the road in question -- and drove a few miles into it. The part I was on, at least, is a fairly well-maintained gravel road. Saw several narrower but apparently passable tracks leading off on each side. I flagged down a passing youngster in an S-10 and asked if the roads are open for wheeling. He said the ones that are obviously for quads and snowmobiles are off-limits to larger 4x4s, but the rest are fair game.
I was on street tires and had no extraction gear, not even a CB radio (not that anyone that far from anywhere would have heard me if I had shouted), so I didn't attempt any of the narrower trails. So there's a lot of exploring waiting to be done.
So I'm wondering if anyone might be interested in spending some time in a very beautiful part of Maine, checking out potential trails. This part of Maine is near the coast and is sparsely populated. We'd be able to check out Acadia National Park, see some lighthouses, visit Roosevelt's summer home on Campobello Island (in Canada, across the bridge from Lubec), and maybe even get our Jeeps dirty. The terrain is glacial and "hilly," but not "mountainous." I would not expect major boulder fields on these trails, but since I haven't been on them ... who knows?
I stopped at the DeLorme map store on the way home (it's near L.L. Bean, just north of Portland) and bought USGS maps for the area covering most of where this trail network runs. If some folks are interested, perhaps we could pick a date and a place and spend an afternoon looking at maps and considering alternatives.
For reference, I'm just outside New Haven, CT. Ellsworth, Maine, is 400 miles from here, and Calais is about 100+ miles beyond Ellsworth. Depending on where anyone might be coming from, figure on a LOOOONG day's drive to get there, and another one to get home. Although doing this right would require a week, there's not enough trail info yet to think of it as an offiacial, National event. But if some folks are interested, a few of us could check it out in 2003 with the intention of maybe doing a national event in 2004.
Is anyone interested?
And I noticed an anomoly -- where there was NOTHING shown on the official State of Maine highway map, the DeLorme "Maine Map and Guide" showed a road -- dotted -- that appears to be at least 100 MILES long, just a bit north of Calais and running west almost all the way back to Ellsworth (which is near Bar Harbor). I did some exploring, and I found the road in question -- and drove a few miles into it. The part I was on, at least, is a fairly well-maintained gravel road. Saw several narrower but apparently passable tracks leading off on each side. I flagged down a passing youngster in an S-10 and asked if the roads are open for wheeling. He said the ones that are obviously for quads and snowmobiles are off-limits to larger 4x4s, but the rest are fair game.
I was on street tires and had no extraction gear, not even a CB radio (not that anyone that far from anywhere would have heard me if I had shouted), so I didn't attempt any of the narrower trails. So there's a lot of exploring waiting to be done.
So I'm wondering if anyone might be interested in spending some time in a very beautiful part of Maine, checking out potential trails. This part of Maine is near the coast and is sparsely populated. We'd be able to check out Acadia National Park, see some lighthouses, visit Roosevelt's summer home on Campobello Island (in Canada, across the bridge from Lubec), and maybe even get our Jeeps dirty. The terrain is glacial and "hilly," but not "mountainous." I would not expect major boulder fields on these trails, but since I haven't been on them ... who knows?
I stopped at the DeLorme map store on the way home (it's near L.L. Bean, just north of Portland) and bought USGS maps for the area covering most of where this trail network runs. If some folks are interested, perhaps we could pick a date and a place and spend an afternoon looking at maps and considering alternatives.
For reference, I'm just outside New Haven, CT. Ellsworth, Maine, is 400 miles from here, and Calais is about 100+ miles beyond Ellsworth. Depending on where anyone might be coming from, figure on a LOOOONG day's drive to get there, and another one to get home. Although doing this right would require a week, there's not enough trail info yet to think of it as an offiacial, National event. But if some folks are interested, a few of us could check it out in 2003 with the intention of maybe doing a national event in 2004.
Is anyone interested?
