Mine Falls Park

As the Granite State Walker blog turns 10 this month, I’m looking back at some of my favorite southern New Hampshire destinations. Today’s gallery: Mine Falls Park in Nashua. This urban park is accessible from the Everett Turnpike (exit 5W, or 5E to Simon Street), Stellos Stadium, Lincoln Park, the Millyard downtown, or 7th Street off Ledge Street. If you live near Nashua and you haven’t explored this park yet, do yourself a favor and get out there!

boat launch on pond — Two boat launches serve the park, including this one outside Conway Arena. All photos by Ellen Kolb.

river flowing over a low dam, late afternoon — The dam at Mine Falls.

autumn foliage along an unpaved path — This path edges the millpond, home to heron and beaver.

muskrat swimming in a canal — Muskrats love the Mine Falls canal. The canal, nearby Nashua River, and millyard cove are great areas for observing birds and wildlife.

snow-covered trail leading to a bridge over a canal — In the winter, I bring my snowshoes.

American flag on a tall flagpole with a memorial stone at base — A memorial to a fallen Nashua-area Marine SSGT Allen Soifert graces the walkway leading to the Mine Falls playing fields.

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.