Monday November 1, 2004

Whitecap & Kennabago Divide

Today's hike was up two peaks, one which has a path most of the way to the top, with the other being a bushwack.

This is the route we took today up to the summit of wcap-ken. The red line is our ascent to both peaks. The blue is our descent from Kennebago Divide. You can see we ended up following a great herd path that went in the wrong direction :<

Directions to the trailhead: From Rte 16, take the Morton Cutoff logging road which is 5.2 miles west of Rangely. AT 3.2 miles take a right onto Lincoln Pond Road. Follow this until 10.5 miles where you take a left onto an unnamed logging road. At 13.8 miles take a right onto Wiggle Brook Road. At 14.4 miles take a left onto an unnamed logging road. This is the location where the Wiggle Brook Bridge used to be. Follow this road until 16.7 miles and park in front of an unpassable washout.

Time to summit: 1:30

This is the profile of the hike to the summit from our GPS.

A 3-D view of our hike.

Last night we enjoyed a great dinner that Geri made - notice the big smile on Julie's face. Try to remember that.

This is the start of the hike. Maybe a small jeep could get around this, but not our vehicle. Approaching from the West and parking here saved us 2.3 miles of walking and a river crossing since the Wiggle Brook bridge has been removed. See the maps at the bottom of the page for detailed directions.

On the way to the start of the hike we saw two moose cross Rte 16 about 100 feet in front of us. We saw these two (an a third that was camera shy) on the last section of Logging road before the spot that we parked.

We watched them for some time. They seemed curious about us, especially after we shut off the engine.

Of course I left the zoom lense back at the camper :<.

The first mile or so of the hike is on an old road like this.

Next the trail starts to be overgrown with pine trees. It was drizling by this time so we got wet rubbing against the tree branches.

The trail became quite wet and muddy the higher we went - as did the weather. By the time we reached the summit of Whitecap it was covered in white snow! The road eventually becomes completely overgrown by small (2 - 3 feet tall) pine trees. At this spot head left until you find the herd path to the summit.

Geri entering words of wisdom in the register. Although wet, we had high spirits.

Geri & Julie ready to depart for the bushwack over to Kennebago Divide.

We descended to the col between the two peaks and prepared to start the real bushwack - Julie's smile is gone as she realizes that this will be a wet hike.

We started up looking for the easist path, while trying to bear towards the peak when we could. About half way there we found a herd path that took us to the summit.

Geri & Julie at the summit. Is Geri smiling because she just finished #91 or because she is thinking of a hot chocolate she will have when we get back to teh trailer?

The return trip was the hardest. We started out on the herd path that we took on the way up, but soon lost that and found another that was very easy to follow - only problem was that it took us too far to the left so we had to double back and push through the thick spruce. Eventualy we found the road again and returned to the car where we were quick to change :>

Part 1 of the route to the start of the hike from the Black Brook Cove campground.

Part 2 of the route to the start of the hike from the Black Brook Cove campground.

Part 1 of the route to the start of the hike from the Black Brook Cove campground.

This is a shorter route from Rte 16 via the Morton Cut off - part 1

Part 2 - both of these routes approach the Wiggle Brook bridge from the west.

Another look at the full route.

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