Ideal family hike: Great Pond Mountain

This has been a tough spring for weekend hikes. It’s the weather that has made it a challenge. If it doesn’t rain Saturday, then it rains Sunday.

Some weekends it has rained both days, only either during the first half of the day or in the afternoon. Sometimes it’s the other way around. Trying to squeeze in a hike where you don’t need either sunglasses or rain gear, without taking both, has been a problem.

So, when Scott Bennett of Orrington called during the week and invited me for a hike up Great Pond Mountain in Orland last Sunday, I doubted that the weather would cooperate.

Scott’s the chairman of the Trails Committee for the Great Pond Mountain Conservation Trust. He said he was leading a group of Maine Outdoor Adventure Club members up the mountain and I could tag along. I met Scott last year at the Great Pond Mountain Wildlands and he knew that I had not climbed the mountain. It would be a good chance to hike one of their new paths.

I’ve never one to turn down a hike, so I accepted his invitation. We met at the Craig Brook National Fish Hatchery parking lot at 10 o’clock Sunday morning. I was joined by my frequent hiking partner, Sonny Whitaker of Trenton. The other hikers were there, and we all drove the short distance up Don Fish Road to the start of the trail. There were about 10 of us in all.

We stood around the cars, introductions were made, packs shouldered and soon we were on the trail. The morning turned out to be sunny and warm, nothing like the rainy day before. The first part of the hike was in the forest, and along the way I spotted some of the first wildflowers of spring. The small white flowers of bunchberries appeared beside the trail. Next in line, I noticed the tiny, delicate white blossoms of starflowers.

As we hiked up the gradual ascent, I had a chance to talk with some of the others in the group. One woman, Gloria Howard, was a former Appalachian Trail hiker who had hiked the entire trail from Georgia to Maine. It had taken her a few years but she finished in 2001.

Soon, we got ahead of a couple of the others in the group, so Scott stopped us so they could catch up. While we waited, he told us this was a new path, named Stuart Gross Path after the major benefactor whose generous contributions made the Wildlands possible. The path ends at the start of the Mountain Trail that takes us to the top of the thousand-foot-high hill.

When Liz, Mariana and Michelle caught up with us, they said they were fine and not to wait, they were just taking their time. They had a small child with them and wanted to go slow. We all started up the hill again under the brilliant spring morning sky and soon were on the ledges leading to the summit.

Sonny had hiked ahead and I stayed back to meet and talk with some of the others, Jim Rohman, Bruce Napolitano and Doug Flagg. Doug is a trip leader for MOAC and as he explained, “I lead the long hikes and Scott leads the short ones.” We shared hiking tales of adventures and forced marches, then, soon we were at the open granite summit.

The summit is not entirely devoid of trees and most of the views are to the southwest. We stopped and sprawled out on the gentle slope to take in the scene laid out before us. It was an outstanding view. Alamoosook Lake at the base of the mountain was closest in view. The Camden Hills were farther off in the distance, just visible under the mostly sunny spring sky.

Fog hugged the cold water of Penobscot Bay, covering Sears Island and the other islands in the bay. One of the most striking features in the view, however, is man-made. The new Penobscot Narrows Bridge gleamed in the morning sun beyond Bucksport. Turning from the bridge in the southwest toward due south, the western mountains of Mount Desert Island rose above the fog layer.

I chatted awhile more with a couple of the women in the group, Sharon Lavoie and Julie Sells, who had brought along her little fox terrier named Billie. Another woman, Kristen Hoffmann, was talking to Scott when I wandered over and learned that she was a worker with the Forest Society of Maine, which holds the conservation easement on the trust Wildlands property. She explained that she was taking GPS coordinates of the property boundary and coordinating them with the photos she was taking to get a clear picture of a recently finished survey.

Scott said that one of the most frequently asked questions the trust has to answer is if they own the mountain.

“We don’t own the top, but the owner of the property has given us permission to access it,” he said. We all just hung around and enjoyed the view, when it came time for Sonny and me to leave the group and head down the mountain. I had to meet a friend in Glenburn for an afternoon of trout fishing that day, so we said our goodbyes and turned away from the summit.

It was an easy hike at only a couple of miles, round trip, perfect for families and children. The mountain gave us some great views, and the company of other hikers made for a real social time. It was all you could expect from a fine spring day. Even the rain showers that have persisted all spring left us alone.

Directions to the Craig Brook Fish Hatchery and the Stuart Gross Path:

The hatchery is located 5 miles north of Bucksport off Route 1 in Orland. Look for a directional sign for the hatchery and Hatchery Road on the left. Take that road and in a little more than a mile you reach the parking lot. Go to the end of the parking lot and look for a road that leads right, Don Fish Road. A half-mile up that road is the trail, marked by a hiker icon, on the left.

sourball@gwi.net