This will be a two mile hike. We will take the Tower Trail up, a .07 mile distance, climb the Fire Tower, then return on Blueberry Trail. Our return time will depend on the group. Reed2ME plans to climb the Fire Tower, snack, and return on Bluebery Trail. Those wishing a shorter distance can return down Tower Road. See maps at http://www.tklt.org/pisgah
Tower Trail: 0.7 mile moderate trail that passes by gnarly old sugar maples and climbs to the 60-foot tower, which is open to the public.
Blueberry Trail: 1.3-mile on KLT-owned land, features stone walls, former fields now grown up to woodlands, and wintertime views to eastern hills. The trail crosses a small clearing which was used as a seasonal cattle pasture. KLT plans to enlarge this opening to encourage the growth of wild blueberries.
MT. PISGAH CONSERVATION AREA
When you hike the Mount Pisgah trails you are walking on 400 million year old rocks that were once sediment at the bottom of the ancestral Atlantic ocean! Over the millennia, the heat and pressure of geologic processes has metamorphosed the sand and mud into the hard rock exposed today and tilted the originally horizontal layering on end. Most recently, the landscape has been scraped over by continental glaciers, leaving distinct grooves in the rock surfaces. In some areas on the mountain where limy formations are present, the soil is enriched providing ideal soil conditions for sugar maple, basswood, white ash, and eastern hophornbeam trees.
The tower was initially constructed in 1949 on leased land, which was purchased by the State of Maine in 1958 to secure its continued use as a forest fire lookout. In 1991, the Maine Forest Service turned to aircraft patrols to detect forest fires, discontinuing use of many southern Maine fire towers, including the tower on Mt. Pisgah. Visitors should use caution when climbing the fire tower.