PENOBSCOT, Maine — Two women hiking up Wallamatogus Mountain on Jan. 16 said they had to drop to the ground and take cover after they realized bullets were whizzing past their heads.
No one was injured in the incident and no one responsible for the stray bullets has yet been identified. But the close call sparked a swift policy change on target practice by the land trust that owns the mountain.
Sarah O’Malley of Sedgwick and Carey Friedman of Penobscot, both professors at Maine Maritime Academy, had decided to get together for a hike up the mountain — known locally as Togus. The mountain’s 350-acre blueberry field and its off-leash permissions were perfect for an afternoon hike with their respective dogs, Nigel and Dahlov, they said. Both dogs were wearing blaze orange, even though deer hunting season ended weeks ago.
The two women heard gunshots almost immediately after they began crossing the mountain’s expansive blueberry field. But they thought little of it since it is “pretty normal” to hear in Maine, O’Malley said, and “we never imagined someone would be shooting towards a public hiking trail.” The shots became louder as they neared a cemetery in the middle of the field where they turned to ascend a steep trail leading to the top. Moments later they heard the sound of bullets zinging through the air, dangerously close to them, they said.
“About a quarter of the way up we heard ‘voom,’ like a whizzing sound,” Friedman said. “Sarah hit the ground like she’d been on the frontlines before. And I thought, ‘That was super close.’”
The two grabbed their dogs and crouched down behind a low berm forming the banks of the hiking trail. They could hear bullets cutting through the leaves nearby, Friedman said.
“At that point, I thought, ‘They are shooting right at us.’ I started to yell at the top of my lungs,” Friedman said.
The shooting stopped, and the two women peered over the low embankment. They said they could see at least two men near the base of a cell tower at the edge of the blueberry field. Nearby was what both described as an olive-green Subaru Outback with a roof rack.
They could hear the men talking, but no one answered the women’s calls across the field. A few minutes later, the men left in their vehicle, leaving the mountain via a neighbor’s private road that is not open for public access.
Friedman and O’Malley walked across the field to where the men had been shooting at a makeshift range. They found the ground littered with spent bullets.
A survey of the area the next day by Penobscot Bay Press revealed dozens of 9 millimeter, .22 caliber and .40 caliber bullet casings on the ground where the men were reportedly shooting.
The area also had two makeshift wooden target stands. Fluorescent orange shooting clays lay scattered on the ground. Two intact, live .22 caliber rounds were also found and removed. A homemade sign warned people to keep dogs in vehicles when approaching the area.
The makeshift range had no backstop between it and the area’s hiking trails several hundred feet away across open ground.
“The thing that really stuck with me was I was shouting at these guys and yelling that they needed to stop,” Friedman said. “They never came over to say, “Hey, did we hurt somebody?’ They just left.”
The women reported the incident to the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office, as well as Blue Hill Heritage Trust, which purchased the property in 2023.
While the mountain has long been used by ATV riders and hunters, BHHT discussed the matter at an executive committee session and decided to ban target practice with any firearm or archery device — not just on Togus, but on all of the trust’s lands. The ban does not apply to hunting.
“We’ve never had a close call like this in my 10 years [at BHHT],” said George Fields, interim executive director at BHHT. He added that BHHT could revisit the issue in the future and “potentially relax it after we’ve had time to think about it.”
This story appears through a media partnership with the Penobscot Bay Press.
