QUICK TRAIL FACTS
- Preserve Size: more than 700 acres
- Trail Mileage: ~8.5 miles (rough estimate)
- Pets: yes
- Difficulty: easy
- Sights: pond, woods, skinny views in winter
There’s a lot of protected land here — more than 700 acres — a small hill (Monk’s Hill) and a pond (Shed Pond). Several organizations are included in the names associated with this preserve, including Gannett Woods, Wyman Memorial Forest, and Allen-Whitney Memorial Forest. There are trails linking all three, forming several loops. Some are walking paths, others snowmobile trails.
If you park at the Meeting House Church on Scribner Hill Road, you’ll see a kiosk for the walking paths in the Allen-Whitney Forest at the far upper-right corner of the field. The snowmobile paths are more or less straight ahead of the parking lot drive.
When I visited in the spring of 2017, I found blazed trails, marked in either red, reddish-orange and blue, forming walking loops on the east side of Scribner Hill Road, in the Allen-Whitney Forest. I’ve marked these on my map in light blue. These trails intersect with the main snowmobile paths. They are well marked, and the trails encompass some rather dramatic ups and downs, with a few scanty but pretty views through the trees.
On the west side, the Shed Pond and Gannett Woods side, there is a blazed walking path up and over Monks Hill, to Route 17. There’s no easy place to park on Route 17. There are slight skinny views through the trees in wintertime. You can also follow a snowmobile path to a blazed walking trail around the pond, which links back up to the snowmobile tracks.
You can see more trails at Maine Trail Finder.
Check out info about Gannett Woods and Wyman Memorial Forest at the Kennebec Land Trust. You can read about the Allen-Whitney forest at the New England Forestry Foundation.
Directions: The best place to park in the winter is next to the church and cemetery on Scribner Hill Road. If you can, park on the road, though, since I’m not sure the parking lot is open to hikers. There are also pull-off places for cars on Worthing Road and further up Scribner Hill Road, closer to the pond.
