| Hiking Trail Conditions Report |
 | Peaks |
Big Spencer Mountain, ME |
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 | Trails: |
Big Spencer Mountain Trail, bushwhack |
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 | Date of Hike: |
Tuesday, August 13, 2024 |
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 | Parking/Access Road Notes: |
Parking for at least half a dozen cars at the TH. |
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 | Surface Conditions: |
Wet Trail, Wet/Slippery Rock, Mud - Minor/Avoidable |
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 | Recommended Equipment: |
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 | Water Crossing Notes: |
Just a few small rivulets. |
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 | Trail Maintenance Notes: |
Trail in good condition overall, a few small blowdowns. There are 3 ladders in all, but none are strictly necessary. |
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 | Dog-Related Notes: |
Steep climb but doable for energetic dogs - to the NE summit. Don't take dogs to the true summit! |
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 | Bugs: |
Not bothersome today! |
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 | Lost and Found: |
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 | Comments: |
I want to add some comments supplementing the helpful previous reports about the bushwhack portion, esp. LongMark's from 2022, which was extremely important in guiding my bushwhacking intentions.
To sum it up: there's no easy way to do the short bushwhack, you must work for it. I at first thought the woods would be better further away from the eastern cliff, but that wasn't true - very scrappy and full of moss covered treed rock outcrops. It's definitely just fine to take the most direct route from the end of the radar installation clearcut, linking together more "open" stretches of woods with thicker ones.
I DID find the old register on the NE end of the true summit ridge, which is not too far from the prominent rocky outcrop you can see from the NE peak - that outcrop has a very nice view. Some of the long time peakbaggers have their signatures in there, and some of them may not have gone on to visit the true summit.
From the rock outcrop mentioned above, it's very obvious that the true summit is further SW from where the canister is. I went about 15-20 minutes further, going up and down a few bumps, until I got to a bump beyond which my eyes were level with the tops of the trees further SW - no higher ground. I then turned around (I estimated that my location was at the 3,224' LIDAR elevation Long\Mark mentioned). There is absolutely no sign of human impact I could see on these bumps; if there's no canister somewhere, one should be put there.
Big Spencer is a most unique peak and well worth deserving of a place on the Fifty Finest list. It's definitely one of the harder bushwhack peaks on that list, despite the portion being (thankfully) short, although there is at least no massive blowdown to wade through. I felt the worst was similar to the thickest stuff I saw on Saddleback (the one near Katahdin Iron Works).
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 | Name: |
Dan Saxton |
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 | E-Mail: |
daniel.saxton7@gmail.com |
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| Date Submitted: |
2024-08-13 |
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 | Link: |
 https:// |
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Disclaimer: Reports are not verified - conditions may vary. Use at own risk. Always be prepared when hiking. Observe all signs. Trail conditions reports are not substitutes for weather reports or common sense. |
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