New Hampshire hiking

Mushroom season

/ Ellen Kolb

A late-summer visit to Winant Park in Concord brought me the sight of tall summer wildflowers blooming cheerfully by the parking lot. Once I passed the information kiosk where the trails begin, there wasn’t a blossom in sight. Instead, mushrooms were all over the place. I don’t know what’s what when it comes to fungi, so I was reduced to simple wonder at the variety of colors and sizes. A hazy day made the usual Winant vista unremarkable, but the colorful forest floor made up for that.

Not a pair of rocks, but a mushroom tucked against a stepping-stone size rock.
This one reminded me of a kind of coral.
With my shoe (at left) for scale, this was a ground-hugging mushroom that blended in very well with the forest floor.

October Assortment

/ Ellen Kolb

This has been a muted fall in New Hampshire, which is not to say a bad one. There are brilliant trees here and there, but for the most part, this month has been dominated by gold and bronze. Here’s my October sampler, featuring Oak Hill, Horse Hill Preserve, Ponemah Bog, Craney Hill, and Crotched Mountain.

Oak Hill, Concord

It had been seven years since my last walk to the fire tower on Oak Hill. Finally, I got back there. I had been warned about wasps near the cab, but the first frosts must have  nipped them.

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Oak Hill fire tower, Concord NH

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View to west from Oak Hill. The plume of steam is from a plant near the Concord-Boscawen town line.

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A small notice announces a new trail on Oak Hill, created by Concord High School students.

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The day’s best maple leaves, spotted along the two-mile trail leading to the Oak Hill fire tower.

 

Horse Hill Nature Preserve, Merrimack

The best color this fall has been in the wetlands, not the hills. A walk to the center of the Horse Hill preserve rewarded me with much brighter foliage than I’d seen just a couple of days earlier on a drive toward the Monadnocks.

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I’m amazed that the beavers haven’t abandoned this lodge so close to a Horse Hill trail. I guess we hikers haven’t been disruptive.

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Leaf-peeping in one of my favorite spots in Horse Hill Preserve.

 

Ponemah Bog, Amherst

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The shrubs and water plants in the bog were showier than the trees.

Craney Hill, Henniker

The NH Fire Towers page on Facebook clued me in to the Craney Hill lookout tower, once a fire tower. Now, it’s open to the public two weekends a year, during foliage season. I made it to the tower just in time – last visitor on the last day!

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Craney Hill lookout tower, Henniker NH.

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From Craney Hill, looking toward Craney Pond, mid-October.

 

Crotched Mountain, Greenfield-Bennington

I didn’t stop with the Gregg Trail this time. Two friends joined me for a walk to the ridgetop via Shannon’s Trail. I owe thanks to the folks who managed to get a picnic table up there.

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The view from the picnic table atop Crotched Mountain: a hint of color, and distant Monadnock. And oh, that sky.

Mt. Skatutakee, Early Fall

/ Ellen Kolb

I headed to Hancock hoping to find some autumn color, but foliage season is only skimming the Monadnocks so far. The brilliant colors are a couple of weeks away. I had a beautiful drive nonetheless, followed by a good walk up Mt. Skatutakee on the property of the Harris Center for Conservation Education. (Check the “Trails” tab on that site for maps to local trails.) Great early fall conditions: sunny, cooling down, no bugs.

With or without fall color, Skatutakee’s summit is a good spot for lunch, just as I recalled. I was last there about thirteen years ago on a spring day when the blackflies were ferocious and ladyslippers were everywhere. I remember great views from that day, so the shrubs at the summit must have been trimmed back at the time.

I started too late in the day to add Thumb Mountain to the hike, with its Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down trails connecting to Skatutakee. That’s an inviting route for another day.

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Harriskat Trail. Leaves are falling, but the maples haven’t turned yet. 

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The view from the Skatutakee summit south to Mount Monadnock was limited by the leafed-out trees. 

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Caterpillars are out and about.

North Pack and Pack from Skatutakee

North Pack Monadnock (at left) and Pack Monadnock, seen from Skatutakee’s summit.

July, Gregg Trail

/ Ellen Kolb

The blueberries were gone along Crotched Mountain’s Gregg Trail on this July afternoon, but the Queen Anne’s Lace was in full bloom. A fair trade-off. Besides, there were still some raspberries left.

Queen Anne's Lace

turkey mom

This hen turkey was just off the trail, cooing softly. I’d never heard such a gentle sound from a wild turkey. A moment later I caught a glimpse of her babies, mostly concealed by the tall grass.

Lyndeborough hills from Crotched Mtn

Lyndeborough hills (Rose and Pinnacle) seen from Gregg Trail.

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Gregg Trail is graded and switchbacked to accommodate wheelchairs. It ends at an open ledge well short of Crotched Mountain’s summits.

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Uncanoonucs in Goffstown and and Joe English Hill in New Boston. 

 

Waterfall Walk

/ Ellen Kolb

A waterfall, good company, and a Bette Davis plaque: welcome to Coppermine Brook and Bridal Veil Falls in Franconia, New Hampshire.

The plaque’s been documented elsewhere, but in brief: in the 1930s, actress Bette Davis was married to Arthur Farnsworth from nearby Sugar Hill, who died in a tragic accident. Someone, reputedly Davis, later mounted a memorial plaque on a boulder in Coppermine Brook, with an affectionate inscription to “the keeper of stray ladies.”

Bette Davis "stray ladies" plaque

The Coppermine Brook trailhead is just off NH Route 116. Our trip was a few days after heavy rains and flash flooding had left significant road and property damage in the area, and between I-93 and 116, we passed two work crews repairing washed-out edges of roads. The trail itself, alongside the brook, was a bit gullied but otherwise intact.

The trail rises about 1100 feet in two and a half miles to its terminus at Bridal Veil Falls. If you want a shorter hike, the plaque is only a mile or so from the trailhead – but you have to want to find it. No directional signs will help you. It’s on a boulder in the brook, accessible via a clearing that you’ll see between the trail and the brook. The plaque faces downstream.

Ironically, a week after a flash flood, the brook and falls were quite tame.
I remained at the lower falls. If you have more time and shoes that grip on slippery rock, help yourself to the upper falls.

 

On the way home, we stopped in Franconia Notch State Park to visit the Old Man of the Mountain profile plaza, memorializing the rock profile that became a New Hampshire icon. The rock formation collapsed 16 years ago, but the symbol remains well-loved.

Old Man of the Mountain plaque That’s my third visit to the state park in the past year, and I haven’t seen the same part of it twice. Worth a stop, even if you’re just passing through Franconia Notch to get from the state’s southern tier to the north country.

The Wapack Trail: a series of dayhikes

/ Ellen Kolb

From Ashburnham, Massachusetts to Greenfield, New Hampshire, the Wapack range extends over a series of peaks that can be seen clearly from the eastern slopes of Mount Monadnock. The 21-mile Wapack Trail spans the range, with segments that make for great dayhikes.

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My copy of the the Wapack Trail guide is well-thumbed, and the map that comes with it has held up pretty well for me through the years. Map and guidebook, along with recent trail notes, are available at the Friends of the Wapack web site.

Pack Monadnock is the most popular part of the trail, with Miller State Park and the summit’s fire tower apt to draw crowds. North Pack is close enough to add for an out-and-back hike.

Other segments I’ve enjoyed: I like the ridge of Temple Mountain in July, when I can make a lunch out of blueberries. Barrett Mountain is a winter destination for me when I go snowshoeing at Windblown in New Ipswich. Watatic, at the southern end of the trail, has a wonderful open summit. The variety of birds in the Binney Pond area make the mosquitoes worth tolerating.

Endurance racers have been known to run the entire trail in a day. To each her or his own. I take the Wapack in segments, at a gentle pace. Either way, the Wapack Range is memorable.

North Pack Monadnock – Pack Monadnock

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Temple Mountain – Barrett Mountain (Windblown Cross-Country Ski Area)

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Southern section of the trail

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