Hikes within a Twenty Mile Radius

Beaver Park in Lisbon, Maine (11 miles from home): Today’s Sunday morning walk was at Beaver Park in Lisbon. It has 337 acres with lots of trails through forest, fields, and ponds. It is owned by the Town of Lisbon and managed by the Lisbon Parks Department. We began our walk at Middle Pond and walked the Jesup trail. We then hooked up to the Swamp Hollow Trail which we followed until we mistakenly ended up on Pine Ridge Trail, then over to J.P. Trail, and then down the closed road to a park road around the ponds. Thank goodness we had taken photos of the park map at the entrance or we would have become hopelessly lost for awhile…not really. There are lots of good trail signs at each junction. We hadn’t been to the park in about 5 years, so we really didn’t know our way around very well. It is an adequate park, but there wasn’t really anything very noteworthy about it. We like having a destination to hike to, and the trails we took walked just took us to other forest trails…no mountains, hills, creeks, etc…

Lisbon ATV trail (12.72 miles from home): We drove down Ferry Road, in Lisbon, to walk along an ATV trail along the Androscoggin River. The trail was a bit of a disappointment and was not as scenic as we would have liked. It had a bit too much trash along it as well. It was also too short for us to get any good mileage in. We walked about 3 miles in all as we did take a side trail not shown on the map above.

Cathance River Preserve Hike (12 miles from home): We went out for a hike around part of the Cathance River Preserve today. The word “Cathance” is a Native American name meaning “crooked.” (Click on the map for a larger view.)

The Cathance River originates in hilly terrain in Litchfield, meanders in a generally southern direction to Bradley Pond in Topsham, then flows east/northeast into Merrymeeting Bay. Approximately 1.5 miles of the Cathance River passes through the Cathance River Preserve… (www.creamaine.org)

When we began the hike at 8:15 am, the outdoor temp. was 21F, and it reached 33F upon our arrival back at the car at 10:15 am. I must say, in all honesty, that this is now our favorite local trail. Much of the trail system runs along the river and we were able to walk right down to the water’s edge. We have wanted to check out this trail for years, but no dogs are allowed, so we had to wait until Kasha went to Doggy Heaven.

We had planned on going for a 2 hour hike and that is what we did. As you can see on the map, we did a peripheral loop of the trails with a concentration on the river portion of the preserve. Our total mileage was approximately 2.5 miles. As you may well imagine, the Rapids Loop was our favorite trail as it meandered along the river and provided us with views of rapids, small falls, and quiet pools of water. Although, I must say that each part of the trail afforded us with incredible views of the river. We can’t wait to return!