Volunteer trail crews have cleared the pathway well, and allowed for good drainage, to keep water off the trail to forestall erosion. This new section of pathway represents a fine choice of route and a high standard for trail construction and marking. This section has been rerouted, and just opened in 2022. The main Fly Rod Crosby Trail route is a right turn at the trail divide beyond the trailhead kiosk. The Loop circles back to the trailhead after a stretch along the stream – a fine short hike: ups, downs, views, and a stream. Local inquiry rendered in the Black Forest story. (There is a similar plantation on the Hunter Cove Trail on the north side of Rangeley Lake.) When I first hiked here a dozen years ago, I was stumped (no pun) at what trees these were. by a landowner who wanted to create a Black Forest effect. This loop offers some views westward through the trees towards the mountains of Weld, more so following leaf drop.Īn intriguing feature along the Reeds Loop is a curious stand of red-barked Norway spruce (not Norway pine), planted here in the 1950’s. The trail, marked by blue paint blazes and occasional diamond-shaped symbols, enters the woods behind the kiosk and immediately divides, offering hikers the option of a new one-mile Reed’s Loop, which climbs to high ground well above Orbeton Stream before dropping down to the stream itself to join the main route of the Fly Rod Crosby Trail. My standard is to carry a paper map on every hike I take in the Maine woods, even if I have a map app on my phone. If there are no maps left, I advise taking a photo of the map display. There are usually paper maps available in a box with a trail register. A prominent kiosk displays a large map of the entire Fly Rod Crosby Trail, from Phillips in the south to Oquossoc in the north. This point is 0.1 mile east of Star Barn, and 0.1 mile west of Reed’s Mill Church. The Reed’s Mill trailhead is 4.5 miles east of the Maine Highway 4 junction with Reed’s Mill Road, on the left (north) side of the road in a small field. Today, I plan for eight hours, considering frequent stops for the trail work. Typically, when I hike this round-trip while on a purely recreational outing, I allow 4-5 hours, including breaks. The trail distance is 4.3 miles, one-way from Reed’s Mill, 8.6 miles round trip. My destination and turn-around spot is the point where the Fly Rod Crosby Trail reaches the West Bank of Hardy Stream, a tributary to Orbeton Stream flowing down and out of the steep valley between The Horn of Saddleback (4023’) and Saddleback Jr. (Like to get in on the trail volunteer act? Contact, where there is a volunteer link.) So doing, I am one of dozens of volunteers who apply similar efforts to hiking trails throughout our Franklin County each year, including this Phillips to Rangeley region Fly Rod Crosby Trail. The trail maintenance aspect of this hike amounts to a check of late season trail conditions, pulling fallen tree limbs off the pathway, clipping brush that encroaches on the trail bed, and freshening of trail markers. Abraham and Saddleback Ranges, places me where the bright new colors of the season are right overhead, or at reach-out-and-touch distance from where I walk. Today’s hike, much of it along raucous Orbeton Stream, which tumbles and roars down from the high Mt. As fall foliage in northern Franklin County approaches peak color, I hike in the midst of it, in the heart of the Maine woods. I am on a trail maintenance trip but the “a labor of love” cliché surely applies. On a crisp fall morning, the hardwoods ablaze in red, orange, and gold, I am on trail, on the Fly Rod Crosby Trail northward out of the Reed’s Mill trailhead in Madrid.

Year walk north mill south brook