3/12/14 Marsh Island

Gray but mid 30's. Winter storm forecast for this afternoon through Thursday so we wanted to get a hike in  in the morning. This turned out to be a bit of a surprise. We started from the Hill St. end and it started out fine, with nicely packed snow with good footing. ( Pink on the map above )

But soon the trail became obscured by some timber harvesting and tracks from large machines. We could see more extensive logging off to our left so we went right looking for the trail or a blaze. This was bushwhacking through  fairly deep soft snow. We did not find the trail or blazes but there there were multicolored flags all scattered all over which was not helpful. But  we came upon a pond we had not seen before and there was open water which Kelley took advantage of.

The area around the pond was quite marshy so we tried back toward the more extensive logging.

We walked along the edge for a bit but still could not locate the trail and gave up and  started bushwhacking back  the way we had come and eventually found the trail that took us back.

We then drove over to the trailhead at the end of Penobscot St. to see if that was also torn up. It was not and we again had a nice trail. ( orange  on the map)

Which we followed through Peter's Field

and on over to the river. I got a couple of pictures

While Kelley waited patiently

From the river we headed back to our car- it had started to snow very lightly. We took the little alternate trail near the end and that was also in good shape. The first part of the hike had been disappointing but the second part was fine. It might be worth exploring westward from the trail we were on to see how large is the logging area. 1 1/4 hours for first part and 3/4 hour for the second.