Also on this trip

Trails Used

Firewarden

Trail Conditions

Notes

Early AM start before 7 AM, temps in the low 40s. No more than 6 cars in the lot in the morning. Always great to hike with nice people. Did see a porcupine at first I thought it was a bear cub. Long sleeve shirt was off after the first 2.4 miles, and converted to shorts not much after that. Great views, fun scrambling up Avery. Only light breeze up high, Mountain Forcast had 5 mph predicted, seemed to be that. Bigelow was an excellent place to take a lunch break. On the way down the bugs were out.

Parking

No more than 6 at the start maybe twice that when done.

Water Crossings

Rock hoppable.

Wildlife

Never heard of them.

Also on this trip

Trails Used

Stratton Brook Pond Road, Firewardens Trail, Appalachian Trail

Trail Conditions

Equipment

Notes

Dry trail until roughly 3K ft, then patchy snow and soft ice. Threw on the rock spikes for the remaining ice flows as you approach the col and kept them on for the ridge. Surprisingly little snow left even in the trees along the ridge and quite supportive despite the warm temps. Snowshoes went for a ride. Seems this week’s rescue didn’t serve as a learning experience for the late starters today without any traction wearing just sneakers.

Parking

Stratton Brook Pond Road winter lot is the place to park, or along Route 27 at the AT lot. Beyond the winter lot of SBPR, there are 4 CLOSED signs from the Maine Bureau of Land Management. One person ignored the signs and drove to the summer lot since it’s not gated. I would not recommend this in an effort to keep the road in good shape for future months since it is soft and there is already significant rutting. Maine trailheads are rough enough, let’s not make it worse :(

Water Crossings

All easily hopped. Plenty of running water for filtering water along Firewardens. No water along the ridge.