Hike Report for Snow Mountain
Snow Mountain is located in Maine, United States. It has an elevation of 1209 meters above sea level. It is located at the following coordinates: (45.2914, -70.7093).
This hike report was written by Mr T, about a hike on Saturday, August 26, 2006.
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Directions to Trailhead
If you drive up route 27 from Kingfield to Stratton and Eustis, and then find the Cathedral Pines Campground in Eustis, you need to go another 10 miles to find the road. I measured this distance in two different vehicles - in one, it was exactly 10 miles, while in another it was 9.8 miles. You turn left onto the "North Road", and you will see a sign there indicating that you are on Penobscot Indian Land. Follow this road, until you come to a "Y" 3.9 miles in. Take the right hand branch of the "Y", and go another 1.1 miles until the road ends in a grassy parking area. You will see a sign for the trail head at the end of the parking area.
Hike Report
We hiked this in late August, 2006. There were 11 of us in all. We left Kingfield about 7:20, and we hit the trail head at 8:30 am. We spent some time at Snow Mountain Pond - it's beautiful there, and worth some time. Be aware that parts of the trail up to this point, and for maybe 1/2 mile further, were rather wet and muddy. This makes me believe that doing this hike in the spring would be harder with spring rains.
Once you leave the pond, you continue on the ATV trail for perhaps 1/4 mile (I didn't measure it, so this is just a guess). The ATV trail continues straight, but you need to turn off onto the trail to the right to head up the mountain. If you are not paying attention, it is easy to miss it.
I was hoping that the fire tower at the peak was intact. I had pictures from another website from a couple years earlier showing the intact fire tower. Unfortunately, the cabin of the tower is now in a heap behind the tower. There is a very limited view from the peak, unless you climb the tower. Once you get 1/2 way up the tower, you can see a full 360 degrees. It's interesting to note that this is very close to Canada, and we could see some peaks in Canada looking to the West.
We had beautiful weather for the hike, enjoying lunch on the top, before we came down. A handful of places were treacherous, due to water on the rocks, so be especially careful. A couple people slipped, but no major injuries occurred.
We saw significant evidence of moose in the area, both from droppings and from prints in the mud. In fact, a couple of times we saw prints on the way down that we did not believe were there on the way up. We did not actually come face-to-face with one, however.
On the way down, some of us took about 4 hours, with regular stops. Another portion of our group ran down the mountain (literally - I would NOT recommend this!), and were down in an hour and a half. Of course, they then had to wait 2 and a half hours for the rest of us! My best guess would be that steady hikers could do this trip, including brief stops at the pond and the peak, in about 5 hours.
Once you leave the pond, you continue on the ATV trail for perhaps 1/4 mile (I didn't measure it, so this is just a guess). The ATV trail continues straight, but you need to turn off onto the trail to the right to head up the mountain. If you are not paying attention, it is easy to miss it.
I was hoping that the fire tower at the peak was intact. I had pictures from another website from a couple years earlier showing the intact fire tower. Unfortunately, the cabin of the tower is now in a heap behind the tower. There is a very limited view from the peak, unless you climb the tower. Once you get 1/2 way up the tower, you can see a full 360 degrees. It's interesting to note that this is very close to Canada, and we could see some peaks in Canada looking to the West.
We had beautiful weather for the hike, enjoying lunch on the top, before we came down. A handful of places were treacherous, due to water on the rocks, so be especially careful. A couple people slipped, but no major injuries occurred.
We saw significant evidence of moose in the area, both from droppings and from prints in the mud. In fact, a couple of times we saw prints on the way down that we did not believe were there on the way up. We did not actually come face-to-face with one, however.
On the way down, some of us took about 4 hours, with regular stops. Another portion of our group ran down the mountain (literally - I would NOT recommend this!), and were down in an hour and a half. Of course, they then had to wait 2 and a half hours for the rest of us! My best guess would be that steady hikers could do this trip, including brief stops at the pond and the peak, in about 5 hours.
Difficulty
Overall, this was not a bad hike. We had a boy as young as 9 do the hike without too much problem, although he is used to signficant amounts of hiking and climbing. There is one place in particular where one must climb up over a rock face for about 10 feet, and a few places where it is fairly steep, but only for short distances. We had a young lady with us with asthma, and she was able to make the climb, although we had frequent stops for her.
Statistics
According to my GPS, the elevation at the parking lot was 1864 feet, and the peak is at an elevation of 3988 feet. Thus, there was approximately a 2000 foot elevation gain. The GPS recorded a total distance travelled of 6.61 miles, and a moving time of 3 hours and 30 minutes. We also registered stops totalling over 5 hours, but most people who are used to hiking will not need to have that length of stops.
