MMR "East Peak" 8/6/11

Rock on a Ledge & Pitch Pine

"Moose Mt., Moose Mt., Where for Art Thou Moose Mt.?" (pictures)

Finally getting this report done! Scott and I were undecided on our Saturday hike. The weather was looking unsettled and Sunday looked crappy. We really wanted to climb Garfield and get Scott another peak caught up to me on the 4000 footer list. Also, a couple that are friends of ours was planning there final 48 on Mt. Isolation Saturday. We planned on joining them for a surprise show-up in the morning. Well, the morning came along and the weather report looked worst than the night before. We had done Isolation in the cloud cover before and really didn't want another no-view hike or getting caught in rain showers! So we stayed in our area and headed back to Moose Mountains....again!

Helliborine Orchid

We arrived there mid morning and decided to make another attempt at finding Moose Mountain (the main peak). I found the Helliborine Orchid at the parking lot to get a better picture of it now that I know what it is. At the North trail junction we fixed the trail sign and added a bolt...the other broke as we were screwing it in. A giant millipede had just come out of a hole in the loose sand on the banking. I've only seen one of these guys once before at Pawtuckaway State Park and was excited to see and hold this cool insect!

Phoebes Nable Mt. & Burrows Field

We continued straight where the trail junction goes left to Burrows Farm. We climbed the steep trail up to the height-of-land where the woods begin to open up a bit to some ledge. I went off trail here and explored some of it. Scott followed and we found a great view spot down to Phoebes Nable Mt. and Burrows Field! We could even see the trail sign at the top of the field!

Summit area of East Peak ?

We continued climbing through the ledge with colorful rock and pitch pine trees becoming more numerous. After following some herd paths and climbing through the blueberry bushes we came back out onto the trail/road and soon came out to the semi-open mountain top. I call this Middle peak for lack of knowing a name for it. But Scott found out that Moose Mountains consist of two main peaks set a mile apart. So this could actually be the East/South peak. I don't know exactly. More questions to ask the SPNHF staff on our next visit! We continued to a junction in the road. We went right a little ways to check it out then went back and went in the Westerly direction.

Green Frog

Soon, however the road disappeared and we were not able to make out any trail. We explored various ledges and found no definitive trail or road. The deer and Moose must love it up here. There droppings were everywhere. There were a couple piles of fresh droppings, so there was a Moose nearby no doubt! We grudgingly made our way back to the main road. The humidity was awful and we'd had enough bush-whacking. So we headed back down, making a quick stop at the field.

Mushroom

On the way I caught a cute little green frog, we found a bunch of mushrooms and I caught a dragonfly who hung out on my hand for a ways down the road.We stopped at the North trail junction again. The sign just didn't look right there as the arrows just didn't line up. So we cleared a tree on the other side of the road and attempted to put it on that tree. This proved difficult as it was a very tuff tree and we had to perch ourselves on a rock at an awkward angle. But we got it up, and it looked so much better there! We will keep looking for a through way to Moose Mountain and get a trail up there some day!