Coburn Mountain, Upper Enchanted Township (3,720') 9/20/2023

The snowmobile trail up Coburn Mountain is included in the new edition of the Maine Mountain Guide, and I had not hiked that route up yet, so it gave me a good excuse to go back to Coburn. The road to the trailhead is in excellent condition, and I arrived around 8:45.

The trailhead

I had heard that a storm earlier in the year caused significant damage to the lower portion of the trail, so I was interested to see how bad it was. It turns out it was pretty bad! Water had carved a canyon up to 6 feet deep in the trail. 

 

An extremely eroded section of trail

This portion was somewhat tricky to navigate, due to the loose rocks and dirt, but luckily it didn't last for too long. 

 

The first radio repeater

Just past the first radio repeater, I turned right off of the snowmobile trail onto the footpath to the summit.

 

The start of the footpath to the summit

The footpath seems to have seen some significant maintenance since I was there last. It now follows a well cleared trail corridor and both end points on the snowmobile trail are clear and obvious. It is still just about as steep as a trail can possibly be without being a scramble, and it luckily hasn't seen much of any erosion. The steepness of the trail is impossible to capture in photos, but I've given my best attempt.

 

A steep section of the footpath

I took this picture looking across the hillside to try and give a sense of how steep the trail is

The summit was in a cloud when I reached it, and it unfortunately didn't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. 

 

The summit observation tower

The summit area and second radio repeater from the tower

I spent a bit of time exploring around the summit, and walked a short distance down the old fire watchman's trail heading north of the summit.

 

This was the former fire tower which collapsed in an ice storm in 1938

Telephone cable and an insulator for the fire tower just north of the summit

Remains of the fire tower cab

On the descent, I followed the snowmobile trail.

 

The upper part of the snowmobile trail

The upper part wasn't bad, but the section below the switchback was very grassy and wet.

 

A very wet section of the snowmobile trail

I would definitely recommend avoiding the snowmobile trail in most circumstances and instead just doing an out and back on the footpath. After reaching the lower radio repeater again, I headed back to my car along the lower portion of the snowmobile trail/old road.

 

Heading down the last section of trail

On the drive out, I stopped briefly at Markham Pond, near the start of the Enchanted Mountain Road.

 

Markham Pond

Although I didn't get any of the outstanding views from the top today, it just gives me another reason to head back to Coburn again in the future!

 

 

 

Coburn Mountain - Maine By Foot