Elliotsville Plt. Excursion: Borestone Mountain

It was recommended that I check out Borestone Mountain by a Karen, one of my coworkers at EBS.  First off, I was excited to hear of a new place in Maine I hadn't been to or even read about somewhere previously.  A quick check in the Maine atlas brought to my attention a few more interesting places nearby that I could likely explore over the course of a two-day weekend...

So Borestone is a sub-2000 foot mountain in the Elliotsville Plantation, and perhaps because of its relative shortness compared to the famous 4000-footers like Katahdin, Bigelow, Sugarloaf, and Old Speck, it is often overlooked as a hiking destination.  It was by me at least.  But it shouldn't be, because it's a great (and pretty challenging) hike with nice vistas and well built trails.  Also, I should make known the presence of the three small ponds halfway up the mountain, or tarns, as I should be calling them: Sunrise, Midday, and Sunset Ponds.

Here is a view of Borestone from Barren Mountain to the north.  The eastern face of Borestone is craggy and steep, giving the impression of a high perspective over the valley.  This is especially nice with a partially bald summit.

Borestone Mountain

To access the parking area, you're going to be coming up the Mountain Road from Willimantic or Elliotsville Road from Monson, and right past the bridge over Big Wilson Falls, you drive up the east side of the stream on Mountain Road and the parking area is after the train tracks on the left.  The trail begins on the right side of the road and doesn't hesitate to begin climbing almost immediately with lots of shale steps built into the hillside.

You can either walk up the road or take the trail, since they meet up at the ponds, where I believe you can rent some rooms in a lodge.  I took the trail, which winds a bit more uphill through the forest.  I stopped halfway to the ponds at an overlook on a side trail which crosses the road downhill a short distance.

Trail network from mainetrailfinder.com

The photo below is just before the trail meets up with the road again.  The fall colors up here, albeit on the ground a fair amount, were still nice (and crunchy - good if you like your colors crunchy).

I continued past Sunrise Pond to the east where the trail soon began its very steep section of steps up to the summit.  The pond is just visible through the trees as you gain elevation, but soon you find yourself focusing on how such a small mountain can be so challenging.  The trail comes to a big rocky outcropping that is steep and includes iron rungs for assistance (or possibly entertainment as well).  Once out of the trees, you can almost see all around you, with Barren Mountain taking up much of the view to the north.  Big Moose Mountain (shown below) is the biggest mountain to the east.

Big Moose Mountain over Borestone

I found myself on the westernmost of Borestone's double peak, and sat for awhile facing each direction.  I'm amazed to say that every view was nice, and had something interesting to look at.  This is a great hike to bring binocs.

Big Moose Mountain from the west summit

The view north includes Onawa Lake and Barren Mountain (2650').  This time of year, I love being able to see the distinct difference between the deciduous and coniferous trees.  You can tell in the summer with the different shades of green, but nothing beats green and bright orange.

Barren Mountain over Onawa Lake

I took a jaunt over to the eastern peak, which was advertised as "highly recommended" on the website for Borestone.  The trail drops into the forest briefly, and then back up onto ledge again.  Around here, the ledge is really odd.  Close up, it looks like there are seams of some harder rock surrounded by a soft rock that was either eroded or scraped away via glacier.

The rocks on the eastern peak

There is a map mounted on this peak, which was great for identifying what I was seeing in every direction.  It had an aerial view in the center of the map, as well as a perspective view along the edge that shows the mountains as they appear from that viewpoint.  I noticed the strangest mountain that looked like a double M, or maybe like "Mm".  It is visible as the furthest tier of mountains in the photo below. It turns out this is Mt. Bigelow, a mountain I climbed with my friend Gugen in the summer of 2014.  The two higher bumps are Avery and West Peak, and the lower bumps are the two Horns on the west side of the ridge.

The view southwest, Bigelow in the distance

I saw some really interesting rock patterns on this hike as well.  I say they take the medal from Tumbledown's wiggly scrapes from last week.  Not sure if this is layered rock that got smushed, or glacier scrapes, but either way, it was pretty awesome. And it adds traction on those steep faces, so you don't get scrapes like this on your face when you fall. :)

Below is my Google Earth track and elevation profile.  You can see the trail down to the overlook, which I took on the way up but not on the way down.

Hike Data:
Miles hiked: 3.8
Time elapsed: 2 hours
Total ascent: 1650'