A trail report after a December 2012 snowfall:

My timing couldn’t have been better. I drove into the Horse Hill Nature Preserve parking lot on Amherst Road in Merrimack this afternoon just as a snowmobile emerged from the trail after grooming the snow. (That’s a job done by volunteers, as is so much other maintenance on New Hampshire trails.) We’ve had about a foot of snow over the past three days, topped with lovely powder, and I was eager to bring my snowshoes out from storage. I usually don’t get out on trails after snowfalls until the snow’s been chewed up & packed by lots of other people. Today, I had two great hours on the main loop trail: no ice, no bare spots, no skiers. I love skiers – in fact, I’m married to one – but today, I didn’t have to worry about staying off to one side to make room for them. Today was for snowshoers.

There were ten cars in the lot when I arrived, but that didn’t presage a traffic jam on the trail. Horse Hill covers a lot of ground. I passed maybe a dozen people altogether, along with four friendly dogs. The presence of the dogs probably accounted for the absence of wildlife along my way.