On to Moosehead Lake, August 14

We left the Bangor Elks Lodge pretty early on Sunday morning heading for Greenville which is on Moosehead Lake.  The Maine Atlas and Gazetteer shows lots of camps, but it is unclear if they are private or public campgrounds and most are accessible by dirt road.  The "jello plan" was to drive to Greenville and unhook and scout out some areas.  By the time we did the dump and fill routine and fuel up it was noon before we arrived in Greenville.


View of Moosehead Lake coming into Greenville.


We had been told to talk to the folks at the Trading Post in Greenville about dry camping.  the Trading Post happened to be right where we parked the rigs so we went in and asked where some dispersed camping might be.  Apparently in this part of the country "dispersed camping" is not a common term and those folks didn't have a clue what we were talking about.  They did point us to a camp down the road aways, which we went and checked out.  It looked like some folks were "set in for the duration" so it didn't look to promising.

Next we stopped and talked one of the locals who used to work for one of the logging companies and he gave us some good tips and pointed us to a large dirt parking area not far from town, but I wanted "lake front property". The local guy talked about some private forest area that had plenty of camping  but we were still a little confused as to accessibility and location, so we stopped at the forest service office.  The ranger was amused by our questions about dispersed or remote camping but cleared up our concerns and pointed out some good spots we had circled on the Gazetteer.   As it turns out most of the forest land in these parts is owned by private companies but management of the forest is tandem with the state and government and public camp sites are set up on the private logging lands for public access and camping.(That is a real simplistic explanation, for more detail google North Maine Woods..it's complicated). Most of the campgrounds were old primitive logging camps.

Our patients paid off and although we had to drive the rigs on 9 miles of dirt logging roads we ended up at the most awesome campsite...just what the doctor ordered after spending so much time in the city and "blacktop camping". It rained all day the first day, but you know what? We didn't care.  Just sitting and looking at the lake  and watching the Loons go by was all the excitement we needed.

You can see our homes on the shore of Spencer Bay

Spencer Mountain and Little Spencer Mountain

 Life is tough!!

We well most like spend the whole week here.  It is so quiet and peaceful.  In addition to lake kayaking there are snowmobile and hiking trails to explore. Stayed tuned.