Exploring Flagstaff Lake Maine

Welcome my leaf-peeping friends, to another chapter of “As the Leaf Turns”. Today I’m going to tell you about a Maine trip where Lisa and I went up to try and find “early” fall colors. In 2021, I kept seeing people post really nice images of the fall colors up around Flagstaff Lake so we made reservations for Sept 26-28 2021.

Maine’s Fall Colors (Seeing the trees for the forest)

Before you go too far, Have you picked up your Gazetteer?

I have all the Gazetteers in my Amazon store and travel books from Frommers and Moon travel writers, with subjects covering New England.

We spent a long weekend driving around Flagstaff Lake, Route 27, and Long Falls Dam Road. (Carrabassett Vallery) While the pictures I’m posting below are great (IMHO) I have to say my favorite images are from my drone.

The one issue I find in Maine is that so many scenic views are limited by the very trees you are there to see. On Monday, we drove ALL the way around Flagstaff Lake. There ARE several areas to get views of the scenic landscape like this…

Flagstaff Lake in Maine from Long Falls Dam Road

But many of the views are limited to peeking through the trees. But my answer to this was to invest in a small drone. I took a pilot course and got my Part 107 certification to fly my drone commercially (This means I can sell my images from it legally). So let’s see what getting above the trees does for your scenic view.

Drone view of Long Falls Dam Road in autumn, view in my gallery

We found a pull-off so no one had to go around us and as soon as I was in the air my jaw hit the ground. I was in love with the views of Maine that you can get by just being a few hundred feet above the tree line. Here you can see what we saw at ground level as we drove along the logging road.

This is what you generally are going to see along a logging road. The video has been smoothed out so no one watching it gets seasick from the vibration of the road. Even the paved parts are a little rough. Now imagine only seeing maybe one other car for the entire 30 -40 mile trip. So before you take a trip on a logging road, ensure you have complete confidence in your vehicle. Cell phone service is very spotty. OH! And one thing to note…

You do not own this road…

Log hauler on Long Falls Dam Road coming through the fall colors — Log hauler on Long Falls Dam Road

He owns the road, whereas you are traveling at 10-30MPH, he is barreling along at 50MPH! I was pulled over, but when I heard the diesel engine and the abrupt air brakes, I got a little nervous. A friend who lives up there wants me to remind you that the logging trucks own both sides of the road and there are cute little signs to remind the drivers to watch for passenger cars. Like they care… 🙂

Why would I take a chance with all these issues? Well, to start with, my drone can get wonderful, if not epic, images of Maine’s wilderness scenic views like this.