Oak Hill

A pair of enduring favorites

/ Ellen Kolb

The Granite State Walker blog is now sixteen years old! This modest landmark prompted me to look back and see which posts have drawn the most viewers – and I hope inspired as many hikes – during that time.

Two destinations finished way out in front: Mount Kearsarge with its trailheads in Warner and Wilmot, and Oak Hill in Concord. Each has prompted several posts from me, and even the older posts keep finding an audience.

Oak Hill, New Hampshire, fall foliage, hill showing through distant haze
view from Oak Hill, looking west toward Mount Kearsarge
mountaintop cairn, blue sky with puffy clouds
view from Mt. Kearsarge summit, Warner NH

I’m not surprised. Each of those locations has a fire tower, which can be an irresistible draw. Each one offers multiple trails. Easy access is another advantage: the south side of Kearsarge, via Rollins State Park, is only a few minutes’ drive from I-89. Oak Hill is close to I-93, and in fact is only a 12-minute drive from the State House (I checked).

The auto road through Rollins State Park ends at a picnic area a half-mile from the Kearsarge summit, which is a short hike for day trippers. (Don’t be lulled into carelessness by the short distance; plan ahead and wear appropriate footwear.) When the auto road is closed to vehicular traffic, usually November through May, it’s still accessible to pedestrians and bicyclists, and one needn’t get to the summit to find fine views along the way. Winslow State Park on the north side of Kearsarge offers a longer hike.

The Oak Hill trails are managed by the city of Concord, which has a surprising number of parks and trails for a city its size. The trail to the fire tower meanders uphill for about two forested miles to the Concord-Loudon town line. Shorter trails lead to pleasant vistas, including a western prospect that looks out toward – you guessed it – Mt. Kearsarge.

In sixteen years as the Granite State Walker, I haven’t run out of good places to explore south of the White Mountains. New trails are ahead, I know. But it’s good to have some old favorites to which we can return now and then. Kearsarge and Oak Hill are two of the best.

Autumn walk to a fire tower

/ Ellen Kolb

Take time for Oak Hill when you’re passing through New Hampshire’s capital city. Concord has many fine parks and trails, but only one includes a fire tower. The tower on Oak Hill was rebuilt not long ago, so it’s as shiny-and-new as you’ll ever find it. A hard frost or two has smacked down the local insects. Autumn colors are muted now, more gold-and-bronze than scarlet-and-yellow. Trees are losing their leaves, and so views are opening up. Wear something that’s blaze-orange; ’tis the season.

Find maps to all of Concord’s trails at concordnh.gov/1033/Hiking-Trails. Oak Hill is #12.

Oak Hill is exactly that: a hill covered with oak trees. It’s all a walk in the woods except for the fire tower and a couple of vistas (conveniently marked on the trail map). Follow the Tower Trail’s yellow blazes from the parking area on Shaker Road. Once at the tower, a climb to the landing just below the cab will reward you with a 360 degree view.

With apologies for my unsteady camera work: Oak Hill’s fire tower with one of the neighboring communication masts. All photos by Ellen Kolb/Granite State Walker.
  • Along Oak Hill’s Tower Trail: granite marker at the Concord-Loudon town line.
  • Junctions on Oak Hill’s Tower Trail are well-marked.
Mount Kearsarge in Warner, seen from the Swope Slope vista on Oak Hill in Concord, New Hampshire.

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.

Back to Oak Hill

/ Ellen Kolb

Over the ten years I’ve been keeping this blog, there’s one unassuming little post that keeps getting hits every single month: my walk to the Oak Hill fire tower where Concord meets Loudon, New Hampshire. Is it the “fire tower” phrase that keeps the search engines happy, or does Concord have a lot of enthusiastic local walkers?

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The only blossoms in sight on a spring day were on the ground cover at the edge of the trail. Photos by Ellen Kolb.

Either way, the Oak Hill trails deserve the attention. They’re pleasant, easy, varied, and only a few minutes away from downtown Concord. I headed there after some work at the State House recently, knowing that I could only spare a half hour or so.

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Junctions are well-marked, but this little “new vista” sign helped keep me on the right path.

I followed the signs to “vista,” only about a 12-minute walk from the parking area, and was treated to a good view of Mt. Kearsarge. I had thought that the fire tower was the only place on the hill with such a vista. My quick visit was well-rewarded. Bonus: a walk in the woods after a few hours in a hearing room is a good idea.

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Mt. Kearsarge to the west. Trees conceal the Merrimack River, flowing south past the industrial building at right.

Easy hike to Oak Hill fire tower

/ Ellen Kolb / 1 Comment

City of Concord NH hiking trails

One of my favorite little guidebooks is “A Field Guide to New Hampshire Firetowers” (privately published, 2005 edition), but sometimes the notes on access to the towers are out of date or otherwise unhelpful. So it is with the book’s directions to Loudon’s Oak Hill, which direct me to an Oak Hill Road trailhead with no parking. The city of Concord and its conservation commission provide a useful alternative: the Tower Trail, with a 10-vehicle parking area on Shaker Road about 2.4 miles from Rt. 132 in northeastern Concord. Look for the sign for Oak Hill city forest. This trail approaches the fire tower from the west.

Stop at the city’s web site (link above) to see descriptions of this trail and over a dozen others within the city limits.  Print out a map of your chosen trail from the web. Tower Trail is part of a network on Oak Hill, and while the trail itself is well-blazed and easy to follow, having a map at hand is always a good idea.

All intersections are signed, and the trail is free of obstructions. The few bridges are intact. Oak Hill is still snowless, and the trail itself is ice-free except for a few small areas in the last few hundred yards leading to the tower. The frozen ground is covered with leaves that can be a bit slippery, and the surface is a bit uneven with rocks and roots. (In other words, this is a typical woods walk.) Some of the side trails lead to vistas, according to the map, but I stayed on Tower Trail, where the views are all of the surrounding forest. Not a bad view at that.

The last quarter-mile or so follows a power line straight to the fire tower, which is dwarfed by a pair of cell towers. The cab is unstaffed this time of year, of course, and locked up for the season. I was able to climb to the platform just below the cab, stopping at each landing to wonder just what the fire warden was supposed to survey. I had to get to the platform before the view and the breeze really opened up.  Warner’s Mt. Kearsarge dominated the view to the west-northwest. There are hills in all directions, none of them snowcapped yet, though my view was limited by distant haze.

It’s about 500 feet of vertical rise from the trailhead to the tower, with a gentle grade.  The hike took me 50 minutes each way, and a more fit walker could undoubtedly cut that time considerably.  The full trail network on the hill covers about 7 miles, so a hiker could easily spend a day exploring the area. There are no facilities at the trailhead.

The trailhead is less than 15 minutes’ drive from the State House, and the trail is in great shape. I’ll be back.