| Lead Mountain | |
|---|---|
Lead Mountain and Bear Pond from the south | |
| Highest point | |
| Elevation | 1479+ ft (451+ m) NAVD 88 [1] |
| Prominence | 1,120 ft (340 m) [1] |
| Coordinates | 44°51′52″N68°06′37″W / 44.86456°N 68.11032°W Coordinates: 44°51′52″N68°06′37″W / 44.86456°N 68.11032°W [2] |
| Geography | |
  Lead Mountain | |
| Topo map | USGS Lead Mountain |
| Climbing | |
| Easiest route | Hiking, class 1 |
Lead Mountain, at 1,479-foot (451 m) high is a peak in eastern Maine. Lead Mountain is located north of the town of Beddington on the border of Hancock and Washington counties in Downeast Maine. The isolation of Lead Mountain is 35.73 miles, and it is easily visible from miles away along Maine state routes 9 and 193
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. Maine is the 12th smallest by area, the 9th least populous, and the 38th most densely populated of the 50 U.S. states. It is bordered by New Hampshire to the west, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and northwest respectively. Maine is the easternmost state in the contiguous United States, and the northernmost state east of the Great Lakes. It is known for its jagged, rocky coastline; low, rolling mountains; heavily forested interior; and picturesque waterways, as well as its seafood cuisine, especially lobster and clams. There is a humid continental climate throughout most of the state, including in coastal areas such as its most populous city of Portland. The capital is Augusta.
Beddington is a town in Washington County, Maine, United States. The population was 50 at the 2010 census. It is the smallest organized town in Maine.
Hancock County is a county located in the U.S. state of Maine. As of the 2010 census, the population was 54,418. Its county seat is Ellsworth. The county was incorporated on June 25, 1789 and named for John Hancock, the first governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The Commissioners are Antonio Blasi, Steven Joy and Percy Brown.
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The southern slopes of Lead Mountain are the location of the Bear Brook Watershed in Maine, a long-term research site dedicated to studying the effects of acid deposition on a landscape. [3] Likewise, the southeast slopes of the mountain are drained by Bear Brook. The bedrock of the area contains small blebs of pyrrhotite, which may be mistaken for lead. [4]
The Bear Brook Watershed in Maine (BBWM) is an experimental forest operated by the University of Maine in Hancock County, Maine, United States. The BBWM focuses around the two small first order branches of Bear Brook on the southeastern slopes of Lead Mountain above Bear Pond. Two years of monitoring studies began in 1987, after which the two watersheds of East and West Bear Brook were determined to be nearly identical. The West Bear Brook watershed was experimentally acidified with ammonium sulfate every other month from November 1989 until August 2016 to study the effects of sulfur and nitrogen acid deposition. East Bear Brook has been used as an untreated reference. Related research topics at BBWM include climate change, carbon sequestration, base cation depletion, and watershed biogeochemistry. There are two USGS stream gauges on the East and West Branches of Bear Brook.
In geology, mineralogy, and petrology, a bleb is a small bubble-like inclusion of one mineral within a larger mineral. An example is a bleb of sylvite within chlorite. Blebs tend to be brightly coloured.
Pyrrhotite is an iron sulfide mineral with the formula Fe(1-x)S. It is a nonstoichiometric variant of FeS, the mineral known as troilite. Pyrrhotite is also called magnetic pyrite, because the color is similar to pyrite and it is weakly magnetic. The magnetism decreases as the iron content increases, and troilite is non-magnetic.
Lead Mountain is located on private land, but can be hiked by the public. The primary route to Lead Mountain begins just north of the at the gated end of a dirt road southeast of the peak. [5] The route follows the dirt road beyond the gate before turning up a path that ascends southeast of the summit before continuing up the east side of the mountain to reach the summit.
A dirt road or track is a type of unpaved road made from the native material of the land surface through which it passes, known to highway engineers as subgrade material. Dirt roads are suitable for vehicles; a narrower path for pedestrians, animals, and possibly small vehicles would be called a dirt track—the distinction is not well-defined. Unpaved roads with a harder surface made by the addition of material such as gravel and aggregate (stones), might be referred to as dirt roads in common usage but are distinguished as improved roads by highway engineers.
On a clear day views from the summit stretch to the south to Acadia National Park and the Gulf of Maine. There are two communication towers on the summit. South of the mountain is the small Bear Pond, while the much larger Upper Lead Mountain Pond is west of the mountain.
Acadia National Park is an American national park located in the state of Maine, southwest of Bar Harbor. The park preserves about half of Mount Desert Island, many adjacent smaller islands, and part of the Schoodic Peninsula on the coast of Maine. Acadia was initially designated Sieur de Monts National Monument by proclamation of President Woodrow Wilson in 1916. Sieur de Monts was renamed and redesignated Lafayette National Park by Congress in 1919—the first national park in the United States east of the Mississippi River and the only one in the Northeastern United States. The park was renamed Acadia National Park in 1929. More than 3.5 million people visited the park in 2018.
The Gulf of Maine is a large gulf of the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast of North America. It is bounded by Cape Cod at the eastern tip of Massachusetts in the southwest and by Cape Sable Island at the southern tip of Nova Scotia in the northeast. The gulf includes the entire coastlines of the U.S. states of New Hampshire and Maine, as well as Massachusetts north of Cape Cod, and the southern and western coastlines of the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, respectively.
Bear Pond is a lake in Hancock County, Maine, United States. It is located less than 0.5 miles (0.80 km) west of the Washington County border, approximately 1 mi (1.6 km) southeast of the summit of Lead Mountain, and 1.2 mi (1.9 km) northwest of Maine State Route 9 near the town of Beddington. The inflow to Bear Pond comes primarily from Bear Brook, which drains the southeastern slopes of Lead Mountain, which comprises primarily the Bear Brook Watershed in Maine (BBWM), an experimental forest. There are two USGS stream gauges on the East and West Branches of Bear Brook. An unpaved road provides access to the BBWM from state route 9 and passes about 200 feet (61 m) from the eastern end of the pond. Bear Pond is surrounded by forest and is drained at its western end by the Little Narraguagus River.
