Pleasant Mountain, along with the nearby Burnt Meadow Mountains in Brownfield, are unique geological features in Western Maine. Most of the mountains and hills of Western Maine are associated with the coming together of North America, Europe, and Africa to form the supercontinent Pangea. They consist mainly of regional metamorphic schists and gneisses, as well as white granite pegmatite (granite with very large mineral grains) from magma squeezed up into the surrounding metamorphic rock from this compression 400 to 200 million years ago. The Ossipee Mountains, a nearly perfectly circular mountain range 24 miles away in New Hampshire is a ring dike – the uplifted and exposed rocks of a collapsed volcanic caldera. The smaller, oval-shaped Red Hill in Moultonborough, New Hampshire (West of the Ossipee Mountains), Green Mountain in Effingham, New Hampshire, Burnt Meadow Mountains, and Pleasant Mountain (East and Northeast of the Ossipee Range), are all essentially “mini” ring dikes associated with the breakup of the supercontinent Pangea. They all contain rhyolite – chemically the same as granite – except that its individual minerals cannot be seen, as rhyolite is the result of lava that made it to the surface, where granite is the result of magma that remains underground, cools over a long period of time, and through uplift and erosion of surrounding rock, eventually becomes exposed at Earth’s surface.
The North side of Pleasant Mountain is home to Shawnee Peak Ski Area, which connects to the hiking trail system via the North Ridge Trail and Sue’s Way off of the Bald Peak Trail. There are four basic trails traversing the mountain that form an X, with the junction of the X at the summit. These trails are The Southwest Ridge Trail (Southwest side), the Ledges Trail (Southeast side), the Bald Peak Trail, North Ridge Trail, and Sue’s Way (Northeast side), and the Fire Warden’s Trail (Northwest side).
More on Ring Dikes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_dike
Pleasant Mountain from Deer Hill. March, 2011 
View Northeast from the top of Shawnee Peak Ski Area. April, 2006 
Pleasant Mountain (background) from the Moat Range. October, 2015 
Moose Pond from the Ledges Trail. October, 2015 
Pleasant Mountain from Route 117, just East of downtown Denmark. March, 2005 
View Northeast over Moose Pond (foreground) toward Highland Lake (middle), Long Lake (middle left), and Streaked Mountain (background left). October, 2015 
Pleasant Mountain from Bear Mountain (Waterford). May, 2014 
The memorial plaque at the beginning of the Ledges Trail. October, 2015 
View West from Pleasant Mountain. June, 2014 
Mount Washington from Pleasant Mountain. October, 2015 
Pleasant Mountain from Streaked Mountain. October, 2017 
Mount Washington from the radio tower access road. April, 2006 
Pleasant Mountain from Burnt Meadow Mountain. October, 2005
Pleasant Mountain from the Route 302 causeway across Moose Pond. October, 2011 
The Pleasant Mountain fire tower. April, 2006 
Pleasant Mountain from Singepole Mountain. October, 2018 
Pleasant Mountain from Bear Mountain (Waterford). October, 2018
Pleasant Mountain from the Route 302 causeway across Moose Pond. October, 2015
Pleasant Mountain with Shawnee Peak lit up at sunset from Hawk Mountain. March, 2018
Pleasant Mountain from Bald Pate Mountain. June, 2018
Pleasant Mountain from Burnt Meadow Mountain. October, 2016
Summit panorama looking West. April, 2006
Pleasant Mountain from Peary Mountain. September, 2010
Pleasant Mountain from Mount Pisgah. October, 2015
Western Maine Views 