Riding ATVs Up in the Mountains

I received a nice phone call this morning from a very excited Steve. He was like, “You said you wanted to go riding today. Do you still want to ride the ATVs up on the mountain?” How do you think I responded? I said, “Hell yeah. Of course I do.” “I’m on my way,” he replied.

I had to pack my backpack pretty quickly. I went and found a tie-down, just in case one of us broke down. I got some clips for the tie-down, grabbed my camera, my helmet, put my boots on and headed outside. Shortly after, I saw Steve backing into the driveway with ATVs in tow.

It’s like magic seeing ATVs back into the driveway. My heart jumped a bit, I think. It’s been years since I’ve ridden.

It didn’t take long for us to unload and get them started. About a minute later, we were on our way out of the driveway.

I’ve been wanting to get further up into the mountains ever since Laura and I did our first loop back in the Winter. That hike was magical and I was excited to see what was in store for us further up. There are also acres and acres of land for sale up there, so I wanted to check some of that out. I like to keep an eye on that kind of stuff. You never know what types of conversations I’ll find myself in later on in life.

After riding to the top of my road, heading into the trail and making our way up and over the hill, we stopped at the first large parcel of land for sale. This one was 73 acres and the owner is asking $60,000 for it. It’s got, what we thought were, awesome views. I say, “what we thought were,” because the views got better and better the longer we rode. But anyway, this piece of land is totally doable for someone looking to build a camp on and live off grid. And there’s also a drive already built, which saves a lot of money.

Right after we left the 73 acre parcel and traveled down the ridge a bit, we encountered the bridge and river where Laura and I made a right. During our hike, we headed back to the house by continuing around the loop. Today, Steve and I crossed the bridge and continued to up further.

Of course, we continued on our journey only after we messed around a bit in a small trail and to check out a camp that’s situated on Mitchell Brook.

We eventually got back on track and continued up into the mountains.

The second parcel of land for sale that I wanted to check out is 49 acres. The sign outside this one says it’s 49 acres and that it’s for sale, but I’m not convinced it’s the one I wanted to see. The one I like has 1,400 feet of frontage on Mitchell Brook. As far as I can tell, this piece of property doesn’t have river frontage, unless it crosses the logging road and goes down the hill. It does have a pond though, which was pretty cool.

Now, there was a little surprise we weren’t expecting to come across today. There’s 70 acres for sale, but it’s not listed on the MLS system. It’s for sale by owner and was quite the sight. What we found took us completely off guard.

One of the signs suggested that we ride up the road to check out the view. Once Steve read that, he was off. You have to see what we found up top (click image for larger version of photos).

I know these pictures don’t do what we saw justice, but take my word for it when I tell you that the view was awesome. It was windy up there and the trees were stunted. What a great view of New Vineyard, Sugarloaf and Northern Maine. And I even got a few pictures of Steve messing around in the field before we left the mountaintop.

After he was finished with that, we headed back down the mountain. I’ll tell you though, that mountaintop was the highlight of our ride today.

After we made our way back down to the bottom, we made a right and skirted the Northern-most boarder of my town. The logging roads continued, but the land hasn’t been logged in years. It’s mostly privately owned now. Camps are abundant.

After we rode for a while, we hit a “T” in the road and decided that we had gone far enough. We weren’t really sure where we were and heading back seemed prudent. This is what we found at that spot though.

On our way back, we had to traverse some tough terrain.

One last really neat thing we found on our way out of the trails. A cemetery. What’s strange about this cemetery is that it’s hidden way back in the woods. There are no roads to it and yet, it’s maintained. We stopped briefly to notice that the headstones were dated back to 1796. The picture of the one I got was dated 1815. I find that remarkable. Take a look.