How Pleasant

February 6, 2011

Not my first choice for a hike today but given the conditions and time constraint,  I’ll take it.  Pleasant  is about thirty minutes away and when I need to get out but don’t have a lot of time, it is the place to go. Due to the snowfall last night, I had to clean out the yard this morning and clean out the mother-in -law’s yard this afternoon. I picked up Chris and Moses the hiking dog about 8:00 and headed over to Bridgton and on the way we decided to climb via the Fire Warden’s Trail since neither of us had hiked it before.

We got to the parking area and were pleased to find it plowed. We were the first ones there and in a few minutes were ready to go. As we took our first steps on trail we resigned ourselves to a very tough hike. The trail had not been broken out since before last Wednesday’s storm which meant that there was now a foot or so of powder with a half inch of crust on top. This is miserable to snow shoe in as you must lift your feet clear of the snow with each step or risk catching a toe and tripping. It’s like constantly climbing stairs but never getting to the top. Two and a half miles of this was going to be grueling. Luckily, the trail coincides with the snowmobile trail the whole way and within a few minutes we came to that and the going was much better.

That trail only had the 2-3 inches and crust from last night’s storm.  We hiked along at a moderate pace and were making pretty good time. After a half mile or so we were overtaken by a pair of snowmobiles. After they passed, the trail was packed down and much easier than before.
The Fire Warden’s Trail is 2.5 miles and gains about 1,500 feet in elevation. We were about three quarters of the way to the way to the top when we were overtaken by a couple from Haverhill Mass. They had a  dog with them and Moses enjoyed a romp with her. The pair of snow mobiles that passed us on the way up appeared on their way down. We were then passed by another group of people on snow mobiles going up. Soon we were at the trail junction with the Bald Peak Trail

and a few minutes later the summit

. We continued our conversation with the couple from Mass and took in the view. After they headed down, another couple from Naples Maine arrived after climbing Ledges Trail. We had a nice conversation with them as well. The three snow machines took off and were soon replaced by four more. After that a single skier came up having skinned up Ledges. He was still there when we left so I’m not sure where he went down. Back country skiing is something I’ve always thought I’d like to try but never have. We headed down after having spent nearly an hour on top. We got about a half mile when the four sledders came down and passed us by. A couple of minutes later we met an older couple on their way up. It turned out that Chris knew them from some AMC hikes he went on years ago.  We exchanged a few pleasantries and continued down.

I noticed pieces of wood screwed to trees that must have been for holding insulators for wire to communicate with the Fire Warden's cabin. For the rest of the hike we had the trail to ourselves and a short while later we were at the parking lot. Of the six trails on Pleasant Mountain, there is only one I have not done. Perhaps next time I’ll hike the McKay pasture trail. A nice day to be out and as a bonus, there wasn’t a long drive home at the end.