QUICK TRAIL FACTS
- Preserve Size: 1,523 acres
- Trail Mileage: 1.2 miles
- Pets: yes
- Difficulty: easy to moderate
- Sights: views to the east from Bells Mountain, to the west from Crane
These trails offer short hikes to small mountains within land protected by the state. They don’t appear to be regularly maintained, so they are probably better classified as bushwhacks.
It can be tricky finding the trailhead for the 232-foot Bell’s Mountain. While the parking lot was easier to find, off Bell Mountain Road, the trailhead was so overgrown when I visited it was impossible at first to detect. Look to the left of the overgrown drive behind a gate (the driveway goes to a little cabin). Behind the hedges and bushes will be a trail sign. An orange tag might be visible from the road. The Bell’s Mountain trail is a little steeper than the one up Crane Mountain (summit 304 ft). The gravel access road to both can be in rough shape — you’ll want a high-clearance care. While there are views from both peaks, they are not of the ‘stop-dead-in-your-tracks’ caliber.
Directions: From Route 1, turn onto Bell Mountain Road, roughly 2.5 miles after the intersection of Route 1 and Route 189. Go about 1,200 feet to the Bell’s Mountain trailhead on left. The trail is to the left of the parking lot, if you’re facing away from the access road. To reach Crane Mountain trailhead, continue on the gravel road for 0.7 miles. Bear right at fork in the road and follow to the end of a short road for trailhead parking.
I hiked both Bell and Crane Mountain on 10-2-2026 and the road to the hikes, and the hiking trails themselves need a lot of maintenance.
It starts with the road which is severely humped in the center. For a truck it is not a problem but for my car I had to drive on the center hump and the outside of the wheel rut which caused my Honda CRV to be shifted towards the ditch. A few scratches from branches on my 14 year old car is not too bad, but other hikers might value their car’s finish a little more.
And there is little reason to damage your car.
Both trails have numerous blowdowns across them. Crane mountain is not too bad in getting to the ledges where there are some views, but after that I spent more time off-trail going around blowdowns then I did actually on the trail. It was only because someone put polka-dotted flagging tape on the trail that I was able to find my way fully around the loop trail.
Bell Mountain is even worse. The obvious looking trail is NOT the trail; that goes to a hunters camp. The trail is cloaked by swale grass at the parking area as tall as a person and very wet. When looking at the hiking trail sign, it is at your back, almost towards the main road and just a bit to the left. While having less blowdowns, the trail leads to a peak. But with no maintenance, the trees have grown back at the summit and there is no view at all. Just barely a glimpse at Cobscook bay in the distance.
IF the road going into these trails was better, and IF the trails were maintained they might be really nice trails for a young family to go to for a nice picnic lunch on some lofty, mossy ledges without being a long, steep hike for toddlers, but as unmaintained as they now are, I cannot in good conscious suggest others make this a hiking destination.