Backcountry Day Trip - The Forks, Maine

[bossman429]

Very nice. I was just up in the north woods with some buddies. It is beautiful up there

 

[Shoeman]

I'm back. Spent last week up there camping in our homebuilt teardrop and rambling all over the place. Biggest day was 85 miles in the area you did. Left the state park, stopped at the IF&W base on the way to ask about the CC road condition. Was advised it was passable but "not fun", and an alternate route was suggested to get to the Moxie Falls area using the Brocha/Brochu road out of Greenville Jct. So we ran that one down to Lake Moxie. Piece of cake, being actively logged and well kept up.
Did the tourist hike to the falls, fantastic sight to see. Spent an hour there looking for two geocaches, then headed to The Forks. Gassed up there and went back to the top of Moxie lake. Stopped there for a minute to study the map again and a UPS man pulled up and asked if we were lost. I told him no, we were heading up to Indian Pond and then back to Greenville. He said "just turn at the big pine tree". Gotta love it when the locals use that kind of reference! And once you see the tree you know exactly which one he was talking about too.
Headed on the one road north to the lake. Went down the Take Out Road in hopes of seeing some rafters and to find another cache. Then up to the VIP road along the east side of the lake, single track, only moderately rough. Turned East on Upper Dyer to head back towards Greenville. At this point the road is a single track with many shallow water crossings and long puddles, full of holes, 2 to 4 mph stuff. Seeing hawks and piles of scat in the road. After about an hour we got to within about 1/10th of a mile of the junction with the Dyer Rd and round a corner to find a beaver has flooded a huge section of the road and area making it impassable except by canoe. So..turn around and retrace the 4 miles of road back to the VIP. Took a short side trip up the next road to the east which looked like it might hook back up with the Dyer road but after a little over a mile in the alders started to really crowd in on the road/trail.
It had clouded over even though no rain was forecast so we decided to back track again and find the Burham Pond Rd back to RT 6. It was getting pretty late in the afternoon at this point and with the early dark conditions I fired up every light I have on the front of the XJ and took it easy on the speed. This is serious moose country and a collision is more often than not fatal for all parties involved. Sure enough in a bit a big old cow came bolting out of the woods about 30 yds ahead of us and ran straight across the road, close enough that we could see the grass it was having for a snack hanging out of it's mouth. My cautious pace had given me plenty of time to slow down but it may have been a different story if I was barreling along like a fool.
The GPS of course shows very little of these roads so we relied on the Gazeteer for directions and had both GPS's in compass mode but these roads take so many little turns around obstacles that you rarely head in one direction for long at all. The ATV/Snowmobile crowd does a good job of marking most of the intersections too which helps but sometimes you come across an intersection that does not really show on the map and there are no signs either. So you take a guess. It's pretty easy to get turned around, and we did for a short section, but we got back on the VIP and hooked onto the Burnham Pond Rd just as it was really getting into dusk which in the woods comes on fast. Did that section with no problems, a nice wide well kept dirt road, but I still went easy, maybe 20-25mph instead of the 40 or so you can travel that road on. Did not want to meet our giant woods donkey friend again. We hit Rt 6 just about sunset and made camp about 45 mins later.
Thanks for the heads up on this area. We'll be back in 2014 for another go at it.