Cumberland Town Forest

I went hiking with my sister in the
Comberland Town Forest in Cumberland,
Maine. Here's some of the highlights
of the hike:

The trail is 1.5 miles long and it
initially parallels an open field which
you cannot see because of the dense
forest canopy. It wasn't until we got
to trail marker #3 that we could see the
field.

We decided to explore the edge of the
field, which is just off the hiking trail
and may be private property. The
field has an abandoned railroad bed that
appears now to be a road for jeeps and
other 4-wheel drive vehicles.

The field also has a snowmobile trail entrance
that goes into the woods and that crosses the
Cumberland Town Forest Trail. We hiked on the
edge of the field for a few tenths of a mile
and then we rejoined the Cumberland Town
Forest hiking trail via the snowmobile
trail.

Once back on the Cumberland Town Forest trail,
the trail markers started appearing again. We
had left the trail on pure whimsy --- we wanted
to explore the field a little bit to get our
bearings in the surrounding community.

It's a good idea to wear good hiking boots on
the trail as it is full of protruding tree roots
and low lying areas full of puddles. We were there
on December 28, 2011, and it has been unusually
warm this winter so far. The ground was only
partially frozen and we could feel the partially
frozen frost heaves collapse under our feet.

The forest is a mixture of planted trees and
untamed forest. When hiking through the planted
trees, you get a cathedral effect as you walk
between a row of trees. The forest floor is
quite tame with a nice pine-needle bed underneath
the rows of trees.

The last time they planted trees was in 1960
according to one of the signs I read. That sounds
about right as the trees are quite mature and
look like they are about 50 years old.

The amount of acreage that is untamed forest greatly
outnumbers the acres that consist of planted pine
trees. In the untamed part of the forest, the forest
floor is full of humps and bumps. You'll spend very
little time in and amongst planted trees and more than
90 percent of your time amongst trees of all sizes
and kinds.

There are streams to cross in the forest and bridges
to help you cross the streams. At the time
of this writing, the first mile of the trail is
maintained much better than the last half mile.

After you hit the largest stream, which is about
a mile in, I suggest being very very careful to
stop and find the trail every once in a while.
At one point, the trail took a sharp left turn
which was obstructed by a fallen tree.

The sharp left turn was marked by very old paint
on trees and is not all that easy to pick up on.
My sister was walking in front of me and missed
the turn. I suggested we turn back and try to
find the trail again.

It was only by standing still and being very
observant for quite some time that I could be
sure that I had found the trail again. After
the sharp left turn, which is indicated by
a colored plastic ribbon in a tree, the trail
becomes much more watery and hard to follow.

It's in the last half mile that you end up
following a stream with gentle 6 inch waterfalls.
We stopped and stood by one of these little
waterfalls just to enjoy the sound of falling
water. The stream has enough water in it to
keep a small town supplied with water. Listening
to the gurgling water brought peace to my heart.

After the little baby waterfalls, navigating
the trail took some creativity. There's
lots of standing water that you have to map
out in your mind so as to get around it. The
standing water creates a maze of little patches
of land that you have to jump over water to get to.

All of the jumps were easy jumps about a yard
stick in length but there were many many of them.
The forest floor is very uneven and has many
little tiny islands that rise above the water.
This is where the humps and bumps found on
the forest floor are actually an aid to
navigation. Without the humps and bumps,
we would have gotten our feet wet.

It was in the last quarter mile of the trail
that we goofed up. We'd done very well
following the trail up to that point. We
lost the trail.

In the last quarter mile of the trail,
come to some reeds which are quite tall.
The tallest of the reeds are perhaps 7
feet high. I"m over 6 feet tall and
the reeds are taller than I am.

We were there in December so the reeds
had grown all summer and into the fall.
We've had very little snow this year,
so far, and somehow the snow has not
knocked the reeds down.

The reeds are hollow. They are sort of
like bamboo but much weaker. The reeds
break easily in your hands.

When you first see the reeds, you are at
a t-junciton. The trail behind you is the
stem of the t-junction and a path going through
the reeds is the top of the t-junction.

We turned left at the t-junction. I now think
we should have turned right at the t-junction.

Had we turned right, I think we would have come
out by a ball field at a nearby school. We
would have walked by this ball field and then
a second ball field which then would have taken
us back to our car.

This document has a map of that includes the
entire Comberland Town Forest trail and also
the 2 ballfields:

Explore Cumberland's Scenic Trails

While the map mounted on a sign at the trailhead
is pretty good, the map found in the above
document is even better. It was by printing
out the above document that I was able to find
the 2 ball fields that you walk by at the end
of the trail.

It looks like the end of the trail is a path that
leads follows the line of the forest right beside
the two ballfields. That's my read of the map in
the above document.

I'll have to go hike the trail again to see if I
have correctly figured out the end of the trail.

Ed Abbott

Rines Forest, Cumberland, Maine

This one I've not tried yet. I will write
about it when I do. As I wrote the last
sentence, my sister walked up behind me and
asked me if I'd like to go there tomorrow.
We may do that.

Here's where I learned of the Rines Forest:

Rines Forest – Cumberland

Here's the easement document that also helps
to describe the property:

Town of Cumberland, Maine
Grant of Permanent Conservation Easement
on the Rines Forest

Here's a document that describes Cumberland's
many hiking trails:

Explore Cumberland's Scenic Trails
Ed Abbott

Range Ponds State Park

I recently went snow-shoeing
at Range Ponds State Park.
Range Ponds State Park is located
in Poland, Maine, which is just outside
Lewiston and Auburn, Maine.

I had a lovely lovely time.

While my sister cross-country
skied, I snow-shoed. We entered
the park from the main entrance
on one of the last days of December.

She was on skis and I was on foot
starting out. This is a very very
popular place to cross-country ski
as there are miles of trails.

After walking past the little booth
where people pay a fee in summer, we
found a trail that veers off to the
left. I've forgotten but I think this
trail is maybe a few hundred feet after
the little booth that sits in the middle
of the road.

As soon as I found this trail, I put my
snow-shoes on. Prior to this, I had been
on foot as the main entrance appears to be
plowed in winter.

I snow-shoed this trail until I saw water
perhaps 50 yards away. I then followed
the small side-path that led directly to
the water.

After this, I followed the shoreline by walking
on ice. I had been at the park just a few
days before when the ice was not solid enough
to walk on. There were 2 guys in the middle
of the pond ice-fishing. I thought I'd give
the ice a try.

I jumped up and down on it to see if it was
going to give way. I did this in the shallows
of the shoreline. I'd then go a few inches or
feet and hop up and down again. I really wasn't
hopping very much. Just enough to listen for
cracking sounds.

Gradually it became clear to me that the ice was
not going to break. However, not wishing to take
any chances, I went back into the woods and
snow-shoed my way to the beach which was just
down the shoreline a few hundred yards.

Once I got to the beach, I started walking the
shoreline again to see if I could walk back to
the place where I had first tested the ice. The
reason I wanted to come at this particular spot
from a different direction is that the shore
had a slow seep with running water. I wanted
to be sure the ice would not give way.

As I kept testing the ice by hopping up and down
as I went along, I realized that all the ice was
very very solid. With experience, I was gaining
confidence in this ice.

I went around a point and gradually came back to
the point where I had found a seep and running
water. Running water can be very very dangerous
as the ice tends to be much thinner where there
is a water inlet.

I really had only a few feet to cross over to
see if the ice would hold as I made my way back
to where I had started out on the ice. As it
turns out, it was very very solid. I could
hop up and down all I wanted to with no effect.

By now, the sun was setting and it was time to
meet my sister back at the car. I did not have
a watch on but I could tell by the length of my
shadow that the day was almost done.

I ended up back at the car before my sister by
a small margin.

The day's lesson? There's always a way to test
a premise prior to committing yourself to some
fool-hardy act. You just have to figure out a
way.

I found that taking little hops and testing the
ice where the water was very very shallow seemed
to work very very well. I'm not an expert but
it seems to me that if you can hop up and down
on ice and it makes no cracking sounds then the
ice is probably OK.

Ed Abbott