Hike Report for Rattlesnake Mountain
Rattlesnake Mountain is located in Maine, United States. It has an elevation of 315 meters above sea level. It is located at the following coordinates: (43.967, -70.4853).
This hike report was written by Douglas Twitchell, about a hike on Tuesday, July 26, 2016.
This report describes a hike on Bri-Mar Trail
This report describes a hike on Bri-Mar Trail
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Directions to Bri-Mar Trail
Take route 11 into Webbs Mills and turn onto route 85 toward Raymond. After you cross the town line into Raymond go down one little hill and up another, and the parking lot for the Bri-Mar trail is on the right. Easy to spot, with a nice big sign.
Hike Report
I did this hike today with my son, who is almost four years old. The hike turned out to be much longer than we anticipated - but only because we took a wrong turn and ended up a couple miles from the Bri-Mar parking lot.
We started from the Bri-Mar trailhead, which is privately owned and maintained by the Huntress family, and graciously shared with the public. Please be sure to respect the instructions posted at the trailhead, which are reasonable and simple (no littering, daylight hours only, etc).
The trail is named after two people - Brian and Marlene Huntress, who hiked the mountain back in the 60s.
The trail begins as a mowed path through a pasture, and then dives down into the woods. My son said, "It's like going into a tunnel!" because the tree branches were thick overhead.
Right inside the woods there is a gate, which is not designed to keep hikers out, but vehicles. duck under the bar or go around it as you choose!
Shortly after this, you'll come to a fork in the trail. Take either fork; they'll reconnect soon. The left fork takes you up over a rise and down the other side. The right fork is a little longer, but avoids the hill.
The trail gets a bit steeper as you go up. My boy (who earlier told me he was a big boy, and didn't need to hold my hand) relented and held onto my hand while we were climbing over the steeper parts.
Eventually we came out onto a rock ledge that looked out over the lakes region. Very pretty, but if you are used to seeing lots of big mountains on the horizon, be prepared for a fairly flat horizon; the lakes are the scenic focal point!
On the way down, we somehow managed to get off the trail. Studying a map afterward, it appears that there's a right-hand fork in the trail (which we somehow didn't notice on the way up, but took on the way down). We followed the wrong trail until it came out onto a dirt road. It was evident that going left would take us down the mountain, since it was clearly sloping down in that direction.
Not wanting to have to climb all the way back up the mountain to get the right trail, I made the decision (perhaps foolishly) to go down the road until it got to civilization.
What I didn't know was that we were heading very far from the trailhead parking lot; the road we were on would take us down the ridge of the mountain and out into Webbs Mills on route 11.
When we reached route 11, I confirmed with a local that we needed to turn right on 11, and then right onto 85 in order to get back to the parking lot. He said to us, "This happens all the time," (Maybe at some point the Huntress family will put a sign at that fork?) and then said it would probably be quicker to go back up the mountain and down the right way.
I'm glad we didn't listen to him! Checking on Google Maps and Google Earth after we got home, it was clear that going all the way back up the mountain would have been a bad choice at that point!
After a long walk down route 85, we finally got back to the Bri-Mar parking lot and headed home.
We started from the Bri-Mar trailhead, which is privately owned and maintained by the Huntress family, and graciously shared with the public. Please be sure to respect the instructions posted at the trailhead, which are reasonable and simple (no littering, daylight hours only, etc).
The trail is named after two people - Brian and Marlene Huntress, who hiked the mountain back in the 60s.
The trail begins as a mowed path through a pasture, and then dives down into the woods. My son said, "It's like going into a tunnel!" because the tree branches were thick overhead.
Right inside the woods there is a gate, which is not designed to keep hikers out, but vehicles. duck under the bar or go around it as you choose!
Shortly after this, you'll come to a fork in the trail. Take either fork; they'll reconnect soon. The left fork takes you up over a rise and down the other side. The right fork is a little longer, but avoids the hill.
The trail gets a bit steeper as you go up. My boy (who earlier told me he was a big boy, and didn't need to hold my hand) relented and held onto my hand while we were climbing over the steeper parts.
Eventually we came out onto a rock ledge that looked out over the lakes region. Very pretty, but if you are used to seeing lots of big mountains on the horizon, be prepared for a fairly flat horizon; the lakes are the scenic focal point!
On the way down, we somehow managed to get off the trail. Studying a map afterward, it appears that there's a right-hand fork in the trail (which we somehow didn't notice on the way up, but took on the way down). We followed the wrong trail until it came out onto a dirt road. It was evident that going left would take us down the mountain, since it was clearly sloping down in that direction.
Not wanting to have to climb all the way back up the mountain to get the right trail, I made the decision (perhaps foolishly) to go down the road until it got to civilization.
What I didn't know was that we were heading very far from the trailhead parking lot; the road we were on would take us down the ridge of the mountain and out into Webbs Mills on route 11.
When we reached route 11, I confirmed with a local that we needed to turn right on 11, and then right onto 85 in order to get back to the parking lot. He said to us, "This happens all the time," (Maybe at some point the Huntress family will put a sign at that fork?) and then said it would probably be quicker to go back up the mountain and down the right way.
I'm glad we didn't listen to him! Checking on Google Maps and Google Earth after we got home, it was clear that going all the way back up the mountain would have been a bad choice at that point!
After a long walk down route 85, we finally got back to the Bri-Mar parking lot and headed home.
Difficulty
My not-quite-four son did great on this hike, even with our crazy detour, but I have heard from other parents that children that small sometimes have to be carried. This was my son's 8th mountain this summer, though, so he was well prepared for it.
Statistics
The elevation gain was about 600 feet. The hike would have been about 2 miles if we hadn't taken a wrong turn. We took 40 minutes to get up the mountain, and then an hour and 15 minutes to get back down again!
