Public Art Enhances Rail Trails

August 18, 2022 / Ellen Kolb / 1 Comment

Murals, sculptures, and illustrations on the pavement could await you when you discover New Hampshire’s rail trails. Some trails feature artwork provided by volunteers from local trail groups. Others display the colorful contributions of area students or professional artists. As you walk or ride along the trails (find a complete list at nhrtc.org), look for treats like these.

Poet Robert Frost once taught at Derry’s Pinkerton Academy. The paved Derry Rail Trail pays tribute with an illustrated version of “The Road Not Taken,” one of Frost’s most famous works. The trail surface itself serves as canvas for this imaginative project.

Read the rest of the post at the New Hampshire Rail Trails Coalition blog.

Derry Rail Trail (NH) tribute to Robert Frost — The Derry Rail Trail features a tribute to Robert Frost with an illustrated rendering of “The Road Not Taken.” Photo by Ellen Kolb.

Madame Sherri’s castle may crumble, but trails remain

July 17, 2021 / Ellen Kolb

As reported by the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, the castle ruins at Madame Sherri Forest in Chesterfield are now a bit more ruined. Time, weather, and probably a few too many human footsteps resulted recently in a collapse of one of the arches supporting the stone staircase. That makes me a bit sad. I’ve always found the remains of the “castle” – actually a once-fancy house – to be a charming visual gateway to recreational land.

(See Forest Society photos of the damage.)

But don’t fret. There’s still enough of the old structure left to spark a smile and fire the imagination, even with caution tape in place. Even better, the adjacent trails are unaffected.

ruins of Madame Sherri Castle in Chesterfield, New Hampshire — *Madame Sherri’s castle, before July 2021 arch collapse*

The Chesterfield Conservation Commission maintains a list of trails and features. The 50-mile Wantastiquet-Monadnock trail runs through the property. My favorite feature of the forest is Indian Pond, a fairly easy walk from the forest’s small parking area.

The Madame Sherri Forest is still very much worth visiting. Enjoy what’s there.

Indian Pond, Madame Sherri Forest, Chesterfield New Hampshire — *Foggy day at Indian Pond, Madame Sherri Forest, Chesterfield NH*

Keeping It Local

March 31, 2020 / Ellen Kolb

Granite State Walker sprang to life when I realized that the low-key southern New Hampshire paths I loved weren’t getting the attention they deserved. I’ve spent more than a decade now blogging about these little gems close to home. For my readers in the Granite State’s southern tier, itching for recreation as the COVID-19 pandemic turns everything upside down, this might be a good time to review the nearby spots where we can walk and decompress.

Go ahead. Get out there. It’s worth the effort to find an uncrowded place to walk. Aim for solitude instead of isolation (there’s a world of difference). Social distancing is important, and some of us need to stay extremely close to home, but don’t rule out every outdoor option. Remind yourself that it’s spring, even if this seems like a crazy time. The peepers are waiting for you. The pollen may have found you already.

Can’t get out now? Plan for future hikes. The current unpleasantness is temporary.

Oak Hill Trails, Concord NH

What are your favorite spots in your own town? Are the trailhead parking lots full?Maybe there’s a new park to discover nearby. Look up Parks and Rec or Conservation Commission on your city or town website. You may find trail descriptions and maps available for download. Maybe there’s a newly-acquired property you haven’t heard about yet.
Facebook and Instagram can be gold mines of information on current trail conditions. Follow or “like” pages such as Friends of the Goffstown Rail Trail and Londonderry Trailways (to give just two examples). You might find reports that one trail is experiencing too-heavy use on a particular day, while another one five miles away is much quieter.
The Forest Society has more than a hundred properties statewide for you to discover. Forget the one on Mount Major, where the parking lot looks like a mall on Black Friday. That still leaves a bunch of beauties, and there’s probably one near you. Website bonus: virtual tours, where you can check out properties online and plan for future hikes.
There’s probably a New Hampshire state park near you. There are some access limitations due to COVID-19.
This isn’t the time to push any physical limits. First responders have enough to do at the moment without fetching injured hikers.

Stratham Hill Park, Stratham NH: a guide to what you can see from the observation tower.

Are you avoiding even solo road trips? Join the club. I’m lucky to have a walkable neighborhood: no sidewalks, but no through-roads, either. That’s where I’ve done most of my walking for the past couple of weeks. I find that a daily walk is an absolute necessity, not so much for the physical exercise as for the mental shift.

Bonus for the soul: I’m seeing neighbors I’ve never met, who are also trying to fight the shut-in feeling that comes with these days. We observe social-distance protocols. The six-foot rule does not bar smiles and greetings.

Mbari House by Geoffery Nwogu, one of many sculptures along the trails at the Andres Institute of Art, Brookline NH.

I love the free Map My Walk app on my phone, which faithfully keeps track of my route and distance whether I’m going around the block or up to the Canadian border. I’m seeing how many miles I can rack up doing loops on my neighborhood’s streets. Maybe you like to leave watches and phones at home while you’re out, and that’s fine, too.

Traditional school’s out, gyms are shut, businesses are closed, paychecks may or may not be forthcoming, and #stayhome is trending. My walks are a refuge from all that.

Madame Sherri Forest, Chesterfield NH

Clean-up Crews

February 15, 2019 / Ellen Kolb

It’s only February, but my local parks and rec department has an eye on Earth Day in April. Signups for an EarthDay Park Clean-Up are open. Look for a similar event in your own neighborhood, via Facebook or your town’s web site on the parks-and-recreation page.

I call dibs on Horse Hill.

There’s never a wrong time of year for park and trail maintenance, but events like this one are as much a town-wide celebration as a work party. It’ll be a good day.

The Wapack Trail: a series of dayhikes

November 22, 2016 / 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.

wapack-range-seen-from-monadnock

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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A decade of good times

November 2, 2016November 2, 2016 / Ellen Kolb

While the rest of the nation is occupied with the presidential election, I’m celebrating a modest milestone: I started this blog ten years ago this month.

Second Street bridge, near east end of Piscataquog Rail Trail, Manchester NH. All photos by Ellen Kolb.

It’s still a fun project for me. It reaches only a handful of people, including a few very faithful readers to whom I send my grateful greetings. Granite State Walker is mainly my online journal and album, a repository for my memories and a resource for trips yet to come.

Most of the posts in this anniversary month will be looks back at some of my favorite destinations. Many of those destinations are close to New Hampshire’s largest cities, easily accessible, and good for kids as well as adults. Maybe one of them will become a favorite of yours.

Woodmont Orchard near Silver Lake State Park, Hollis NH.

I love my southern New Hampshire trails more than ever. I appreciate trail maintainers more than I used to. I understand more than I did a decade ago about the long administrative slog that goes into authorizing a new recreational trail even before the first weed is whacked.

I’m grateful to many people I’ll never meet, whose work has left us with parks and trails to which I return again and again. The blogging shall continue as long as I have “wows” to express. No end in sight, at this point.