Black Dog's House on Wheels: Mooshead Lake and Mt. Kineo, August 16

It rained all day Monday and into Tuesday morning. By noon we were getting cabin fever so Nancy, Manyard and I jumped in Joel's car and headed out to explore, hoping the roads would be OK. The main roads were very good and graded well, except for the occasional pothole and rocks, but not a wash board like many heavily used dirt roads are. I expected the roads would be in much worse condition due to all of the rain, but they were good. I've been on much, much worse.

We headed over to Mt. Kineo, a peninsula on Moosehead Lake. If you are staying on the west side of lake you can take a ferry from Rockwood to Mt. Kineo, but the map showed a road to it from east side. We drove until we came to huge boulders across the road about one mile from Mt. Kineo. I found out later the road is blocked off during the winter to slow down the snowmobilers. I queried but it's not winter yet? We followed the road on foot and much to our amazement came across big fancy homes and a 9 hole golf course. There is a nice trail to the top of Mt. Kineo, but it drizzled most of the day and we talked with some folks who had just come down off the top and they said it was really muddy. We'll do that one another day when there are clear skies and we can take advantage of the view.

Spencer Pond on the way to Mt. Kineo

We stopped at Cowen Cove and this little guy was really friendly. I think he was looking for hand outs. On the way we were treated to a Moose sighting of a sow and calf, but they ran in the trees before we could get pictures of them.

I've seen a lot of mushrooms on my hikes but this one was really unusual.

So we are walking along in the forest with absolutely no signs of humanity and we come across this:
Shocking!!

It turns out there are vacation homes and a 9 hole golf course next to Mt. Kineo. Mt. Kineo was a resort in the 1800's and at one time had a hotel which held over 500 guests. The golf course is thought to be the second oldest in New England.

The cliffs of Mt. Kineo rise more than 700 ft.

The ferry goes to Mt. Kineo every hour and shuttles back and forth to Rockwood. Supplies and building material are brought in by barge. There is only one road to the peninsula which is the one we took and is blocked off. It's not better than a snow mobile trail, so I imagine it would be hard to get supplies in on that road.