Tumbledown Mountain Loop
The Loop Trail’s chimney-like Fat Man’s Misery, open ledges, and Tumbledown Pond create a compact route with mountaineering character.
Artwork inspired by Wabanaki basketry
A mountain pond and steep granite passages reward a serious western Maine climb. The Loop Trail’s chimney-like Fat Man’s Misery, open ledges, and Tumbledown Pond create a compact route with mountaineering character. Easier alternatives still demand mountain judgment.
Choose the Brook Trail unless everyone is comfortable with tight scrambling, and reserve the Loop Trail for dry rock and adequate strength. Falls, route-finding, sudden storms, ice, and the crawl through Fat Man’s Misery make the loop unsuitable for many hikers. At Tumbledown Mountain Loop, route choice and environmental conditions matter more than headline mileage or a single map pin.
- Elevation
- 3,068 feet
- Feature
- Alpine pond
- Route type
- Scrambling loop
Quick guide
- Start with
- Choose the Brook Trail unless everyone is comfortable with tight scrambling, and reserve the Loop Trail for dry rock and adequate strength.
- Look closely at
- Compare open ledges with Fat Man’s Misery; the relationship reveals something the headline feature alone cannot.
Know before you go
- Start with
- Choose the Brook Trail unless everyone is comfortable with tight scrambling, and reserve the Loop Trail for dry rock and adequate strength.
- Look closely at
- Compare open ledges with Fat Man’s Misery; the relationship reveals something the headline feature alone cannot.
- Connect the story
- Connect the chimney scramble, open ledges, and alpine pond as successive products of the mountain’s resistant granite terrain.
- Plan around
- Check current conditions before leaving, set a turnaround time, and preserve enough daylight to examine Fat Man’s Misery rather than rushing past it.
Good to know
Falls, route-finding, sudden storms, ice, and the crawl through Fat Man’s Misery make the loop unsuitable for many hikers.
Notice these
- Tumbledown Pond
- open ledges
- Fat Man’s Misery