LETTER D TOWNSHIP — A few travelers took pictures of the spectacular views of Mooselookmeguntic Lake from the newly reconstructed scenic overlook at the Height of Land on Route 17 on Thursday afternoon.
What they saw were clouds being blown across the obscured Bemis Mountain Range by a chilling northeast wind, swirling and dancing over the lake.
The overlook reopened this past weekend after a nearly $3 million makeover of the highway and turnout. The area sports shiny new guardrails, thick wooden rails, a paved sidewalk and a spacious, paved overlook with plenty of designated parking. It can accommodate tour buses, as well.
Additionally, there are four new picturesque interpretive panels along the pedestrian path.
The new road was built into a side-hill area for safer traveling and to separate the road from the overlook where the Appalachian Trail climbs east out of the Bemis Track to cross the highway.
“It was just within the last couple of weeks that we’ve gotten everything buttoned up,” Shawn Smith, overseer of the Maine Department of Transportation offices in Dixfield and Augusta, said Wednesday.
“Essentially, we rebuilt Route 17 and we also worked on the scenic turnouts, so we’ve got a couple of newly rehabilitated scenic turnouts on the new road,” Smith said.
“We also worked on the slope on the lower western side of the road. As you go from Rumford toward Rangeley, on the left-hand side that slope was really, really steep and we’ve actually reinforced that in conjunction with the turnouts and natural road reconstruction, as well.”
The job involved reconstructing just over a mile of the road, which goes south to Mexico in Oxford County and north to the village of Oquossoc in Rangeley in Franklin County.
“There was a lot of ledge removal,” he said. “We knew we had a lot of ledge to move and slopes to build and everything, and it went along pretty well.”
Smith said that with the newly redesigned highway and turnouts, he hopes there are no more vehicle accidents.
“For years, that’s been a tough spot,” he said. “It’s pretty twisty and has some pretty good grade to it.”
The project was engineered and ready to go in 2006. However, the MDOT had to wait for the $2.9 million in federal highway money to arrive.
The new roadwork also finally fixed a section of Route 17 that regularly washed out, filling tributaries with silt and pollutants that got into Mooselookmeguntic Lake.
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- The new overlook at Height of Land on Route 17 reopened this past weekend. The overlook and about a mile of reconstruction on Route 17, shown in the upper right corner, was completed by Maine Department of Transportation contractor Pike Industries.
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- A pickup truck travels past the rehabilitated Height of Land scenic overlook late Thursday afternoon, driving toward Oquossoc on the rebuilt Route 17 in Letter D Township in Franklin County.
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- One of four new interpretive panels at the newly reopened Height of Land scenic overlook off Route 17 in Letter D Township between Byron and Oquossoc, details Mooselookmeguntic Lake, which can be seen in the distance.
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- This view from the southern end of the newly rehabilitated scenic overlook at Height of Land in Letter D Township shows the new paved pedestrian path and the reconstructed Route 17 in the background.
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