Road Access Between Shirley-Blanchard Road and Moxie Pond Road in Maine

[Patrickjd9]

I'm working with two other hikers to plan a set of day hikes on the AT between Monson and Stratton in early August. We are planning to go southbound to give us some extra conditioning before the Bigelows. Since we will have two vehicles, we would like to shuttle ourselves as much as practical, though we recognize that some of the driving times might require hiring a driver to leave time to finish the day's hike.

There are a couple of logging road accesses between Shirley Blanchard Road (2076.4) and Moxie Pond Road (2058.0). The most notable is the logging road at 2068.7. Are they driveable by someone without local knowledge in a vehicle like a Honda CR-V? How close can you drive to the AT trailhead before having to walk the gated road mentioned in the FarOut comments?

Thanks!

[Gambit McCrae]

Patrick I wish I could be of more help but its been 2 years for me since that section, and i was in just a 20mpd grind to finish the trail a lot of it is blurry. However I do know that I had planned to use the Moxie Pond Road to access 2 slack pack days but as you mentioned the gate was closed and as I dont recall the mileage from gate to AT I would assume it was further than a mile or so because I changed my plans to another road I could access directly along the AT. I wanna say it was between 2-4 miles from gate to AT. Hope this helps

[peakbagger]

Whatever info you get it has to be 2024 recent. There there two wet winters storms that washed out roads both public and private all over the state of Maine. Unless private roads were in use this winter they probably will not have been fixed.

[TJ aka Teej]

Hi Patrick,
It's too early to know where active logging or road conditions will cause a gate to be locked.
I've poked around in there a bit on the Taylor Rd in a similar vehicle without a problem.
I tried to get in on the MATC maintainer road to a lean-to but ended up backing up two miles. I think I just had the directions wrong.
Suggest talking with Poet at Shaws when the season gets going.

[Patrickjd9]

Thank you! I did get the impression from the AT Parking website that road conditions were inconsistent.