Rockingham Trail & Lake Massabesic, Manchester/Auburn NH

May 7, 2015February 24, 2026 / Ellen Kolb

Workday or not, an 80-degree spring day calls for some trail time. Decked out in business clothes and dress shoes, I spent midday on a tame but worthwhile path: the Rockingham Recreational Trail from its Lake Massabesic trailhead near the Manchester/Auburn town line.

Rockingham Recreational Trail (Portsmouth branch), Auburn NH, east of NH Rt. 121. Ellen Kolb photos.

The trail extends more than twenty miles east to Newfields, which would make an interesting bike ride some other day. Pressed for time today, I walked only about a mile and a half before retracing my steps back to my car. I took my time to enjoy the birds (quite a variety near the lake) and take a few pictures from a boat launch. The trail is unpaved but wide and well-trodden. It was popular this midday: moms with kids, a guy fishing in a trailside pond, lots of dog walkers, even one dirt biker in defiance of the no-motorized-vehicle rule.

View of Lake Massabesic from boat launch just off Rockingham Rec Trail and NH Rt. 121.

More information on this trail can be found on the New Hampshire State Parks web site and in the book New Hampshire Rail Trails by Charles Martin (available from the New Hampshire Rail Trails Coalition).

Weare, NH: Everett Dam

April 28, 2015February 24, 2026 / Ellen Kolb

Clough State Park with its little beach on Everett Lake in Weare is still awaiting its opening day, but walkers are welcome on the nearby Everett Dam (operated by the Army Corps of Engineers). This would have been a mountaintop day if I’d had the time. The air was amazingly clear. I settled for a half-hour walk along the dam and the quiet roads nearby.

Both park and dam are on Clough Park Road in Weare. The park has a modest entrance fee. The dam has its own parking area a short distance south of the park, and it’s free.

IMG_20150428_101308 — View across the dam from the parking area on Clough Park Road. Photos by Ellen Kolb.

IMG_20150428_112626 — Everett Lake, with Mount Kearsarge in the distance.

Autumn’s edge, Mine Falls Park

December 18, 2014February 24, 2026 / Ellen Kolb

I was in Mine Falls Park today, a few days shy of the winter solstice. Leaves are down, everything’s brown. One plowable snowfall at Thanksgiving was heavy enough to bring down some tree limbs that plopped into the canal, and they’re likely to stay there until the Nashua parks department has time to remove them next spring. The faintest skin of ice is forming on the canal now.

IMG_20141218_115935 — Late-fall snow brought down this tree into the Mine Falls canal. Photos by Ellen Kolb.

The path alongside the canal has been cleared of deadfall (pushed into the canal, I expect). I saw fresh white “X”s chalked here and there, marking trees to be cut down or trimmed at some point. Sometimes, Mother Nature gets there first. I walked past one broken-off oak tree with a big white “X” on what’s left of the jagged trunk.

Things were oddly quiet along the path today. This is a busy urban park, but today, the area in which I walked was nearly deserted. Once I crossed the Whipple Street bridge, I didn’t see a living thing until I spied the swans in the cove near the Millyard. It was so quiet that I could hear the traffic on the Everett, nearly a mile away. That’s very different from my visits on summer afternoons, when on nearby Ledge Street, life is lived very much out loud. Late December is a quieter time.

IMG_20141218_115057 — A trail in Mine Falls, with everything brown and bare, awaiting winter.

New Hampshire fire towers: always worth a hike

November 18, 2014February 24, 2026 / Ellen Kolb

The architecture of fire towers is pretty simple, stark and functional. With the exception of the glorious stone tower at Weeks State Park in Lancaster in New Hampshire’s north country, they all look pretty much the same, distinguished only by the number of antennae and dishes attached. But oh, the wonderful hikes I’ve had to each one of these towers … with more to come.

Loveliest fire tower to be found anywhere, in my opinion. Weeks State Park, Lancaster NH.

A muted New Hampshire Fall

November 16, 2014February 24, 2026 / Ellen Kolb

November, Naticook Lake. Ellen Kolb photo

I walked to Naticook Lake again this week – a familiar place to me in summer, but I’d never really noticed it in autumn before, so every recent walk there has been a little journey of re-discovery. I came across it in the oddest light late in the day. I saw the last of the colorful leaves floating on the lake, so out came the camera phone for a quick shot. When I reviewed the photo later, there was this muted hazy look. The camera itself was fine; other shots taken that day were sharp as could be. Somehow, I had caught the light on the lake at just the right time for this almost-smudgy look. I used a high-resolution setting, with Auto exposure and no adjustments to white balance.

The park has grown quiet with the athletic field no longer humming with youth football, now wrapped up for the season. Too cold for tennis, I guess, since the courts have been empty on my recent visits. I share the lakeshore with only a couple of people at a time, all of us just passing by on our walks, shedding our workdays one step at a time.

Message from a New Hampshire bridge: connect, slowly

November 10, 2014February 24, 2026 / Ellen Kolb / 6 Comments

I live in a textured place. Nothing dramatic or showy, but interesting. Hills here, watercourses there, ledge all over the place: it adds up to very few straight roads and not nearly enough bridges for convenience. The Nashua River in southern New Hampshire could use a few more bridges, and if you don’t believe me, try driving through Nashua during rush hour. Hollis, the next town upstream, is a much quieter place. It gets by quite comfortably with one bridge over the river, connecting a small quiet town with a much busier one. There’s something about this bridge, though, that speaks to me less about connection than about rest and pause. I wouldn’t be surprised if someday I saw a sign here saying Don’t be in such a hurry to get from here to there. Stop awhile.