NH Cohos Trail: Jefferson Road Walk

Some early fog over the former Lake Coos.
Pretend the fog is lake water.

A four-mile road walk would not normally deserve its own post, but the sky had finally cleared to reveal the surrounding mountains and the scenery was spectacular.  I had saved this little walk for the morning of my departure so I could stretch my legs before the long drive back to Connecticut. We did see some alarming fog down in the valley on the drive over, but it dissipated quickly in the sun and wasn't a problem.

Back at the Colonel Whipple Trailhead on Whipple Road

This broad plain was once the bottom of a glacial lake called Lake Coos (pronounced COE-oss), which was a finger of the vast glacial Lake Hitchcock.  I'm used to hearing about Lake Hitchcock within the context of Connecticut glacial history and was surprised to be reminded that the lake extended this far north. The glacial sediments filled in the lake bottom and left it pretty flat.

Walking along the bottom of old Lake Coos was a reminder that my journey up from Long Island Sound was veering back to the Connecticut Valley. The New England Trail had followed the trap rock ridges that cut through the Connecticut Valley in Connecticut and southern Massachusetts, then had climbed out of the narrowing valley and headed into the eastern uplands. After traveling over Mt. Monadnock, Sunapee, and the White Mountains, I was back in the Connecticut River Valley. The river had never been that far away.

The Cohos Trail would eventually arrive at the First Connecticut Lake, the source of the Connecticut River. From the Sound to the Source.

Geese below the Kilkenny

It was a gorgeous walk along Whipple Road. The fog was rapidly lifting and dissipating. In the fields where turkey were feeding the previous day, there were now geese.

Mt. Washington (right) with Mt. Jefferson to the left

The Presidential Range was in the clear finally.  The peaks of the Killkenny were up ahead. And nearby Cherry Mountain was in the rearview mirror, so to speak.

Israel River

The Cohos route takes a left and heads north along Rt 115A. It's a nice walk. Traffic was light.

Hundreds of brave Amber Snails

In the lowest area there were hundreds of land snails covering the road shoulder. And many smashed shells. I believe these are Ambersnails, which like damp fields and can become very abundant.

Hello.

After a good walk through the farmland and a smattering of homes, I came to Waumbek Golf Course. My husband was playing there, but I couldn't see him. We originally had tried to get a room in a nearby Bed & Breakfast that bordered both the Cohos Trail and the golf course, but they were full. That's OK, we liked our room in Twin Mountain with the view of Mt. Garfield.

Waumbek Golf Course

The land rose up a bit here, offering excellent views south past Cherry Mountain. I could see Mt. Garfield and Lafayette, and even the Kinsman Range. Maybe Moosilauke, not sure. All the mountains I had just crossed over.

L to R: Cherry Mtn, Garfield & Lafayette, then the Kinsman Range

I had been to the general store the previous day and had no need to walk along Route 2, so I took right onto a narrow gravel road opposite a small cemetery. We had driven down the road (which appears on Google Maps as Pool Road) while spotting my car.

There's a shortcut at the cemetery

Pool Road turned out to be a very good option if you don't need to stop at the General Store. It completely eliminated the walk along busy Rt. 2 because it comes out opposite Starr King Road, which the Cohos follows. There was a parking pulloff about halfway up Pool Road, which I think this is the parking referred to by the signs at the trailhead up ahead that say something like "additional parking across Rt 2."

Waumbak Golf Course and Cherry Mountain from Pool Road

The main entrance to the golf course is via Pool Road, and I ducked in to see if I could spot my husband playing, but he was on some other part of the course. A quick walk across Rt 2 and up Starr King Road, and there was a designated parking lot in the woods for hiker parking. It was just about full and it was only 9:30 am. This was something to think about for the next trip up, since I would be backpacking and arriving from Connecticut later in the morning. 

NH Cohos Trail: Pondicherry Wildlife Refuge

Slide Brook Trailhead on Rt 115

Day two of slackpacking began on the Slide Brook Trail, the first of four trails the Cohos follows through the Pondicherry Wildlife Refuge. Slide Brook is presumably named after the big two mile landslide that started up on Owls Head and came to rest somewhere in this low plain where it buried a farm.

Bear!

Slide Brook Trail was largely a mowed path that meandered through lots of open fields. The goldenrod was especially vivid in through here, and there were plenty of berries.

Goldenrod

I probably should have started earlier in the morning to increase my odds of seeing a moose or something.  But who wants to wake up early on vacation?

Blueberries, which helps explain the bear.

At one point I heard some animal making a ruckus, and I recognized the sound from Thursday morning when I was still in my tent at Zealand. At the time I thought it might be a red squirrel, but the sound moved around so much that I then thought it must be some kind of bird. Turns out it was a red squirrel after all. Noisy! We only have the gray squirrels down in southern Connecticut, so I wasn't familiar with the sounds of the red ones.

Chittering Red Squirrel

The Slide Brook Trail came alongside some wet boggy areas where purple Joe Pye Weed was in bloom. The elegant spires of Black Spruce dotted the boggy areas, and feathery Tamarack (aka Larch), a conifer that turns golden and drops its needles each fall, found some footing in there as well. There's a similar European Larch that is sometimes planted in my neck of the woods, but I don't see the native one that grows in the boggy areas unless I'm up north. We had it in the north country when I was growing up, so it was nice to see.

Black Spruce Bog, with Tamarack and Joe Pye Weed

While the Slide Trail was marked with yellow, the Presidential Range Rail Trail was not. This followed an old railroad bed for a good ways, with low boggy areas on both sides of the trail.

Presidential Range Rail Trail

At one point I though for sure I saw a moose far up ahead on the trail. Big and dark. But it turned out to be a woman dressed in black walking her dog. When we passed, I didn't tell her I thought she looked like a moose. She was the first person I had seen in several miles on a Saturday morning in August. It's a quiet trail.

Joe Pye Weed thrives at the edge of low areas

A bit further on, a pair of bicyclists stopped to ask if there was anything else associated with the wildlife refuge, like some buildings or something. I said I wasn't aware of anything. The woman said, "Well, it's very beautiful anyway."

Presidential Rail Trail, the Kilkenny rising beyond

It was around that time that what I assume were sight-seeing planes started to take off and buzz over our heads. They were so loud and annoying. I arrived at the viewing platform at Cherry Pond and a series of five of the plane took off from the nearby airport and flew directly overhead at a low altitude. At that point I was sure I wouldn't see any wildlife because anything still out this late in the morning was now diving for thick brush and would stay there until dark.

Mount Washington behind the clouds at Cherry Pond

Low clouds obscured what is normally a spectacular view of Mt. Washington across Cherry Pond. Oh well.  It was still beautiful.

Cranberry Viburnum

There were a remarkable number of berries next to the boardwalk leading out to the viewing platform. Cranberry Viburnum is a native shrub that we sometimes specify for landscaping, and here it was growing wild and full of bright red berries.

Right after the viewing platform, the rail trail was approaching another railroad at right angles and the trail did a "Y". I took a right at the "Y", which appeared to be a brief shortcut, and so presumably missed the Waumbak Junction which I had read about earlier but completely forgot about while hiking. Or maybe I was looking right at it but not seeing. At any rate, the Waumak Junction was where three railroads came together and there were some railroad buildings there. This is one reason so many tourists came out to view the big landslide at Cherry Mountain in the late 1800s. It was easy to get there from many directions.

Don't miss the turn

Per the map and a few brown and yellow signs, the Cohos turned right to follow a set of RR tracks a short ways. I assumed the line was abandoned, but it turns out that trains do occasionally run. This info is written down in the guidebook, but I just didn't remember as I was walking right down the middle of the tracks. It's not like you're reading the guide while you're out there walking.

View from the Ice Ramparts Trail

The Cohos soon turned off of the tracks and became the Ice Ramparts Trail. This was pretty cool and something I'd never heard of before. The "ramparts" are a natural berm created over time when the ice in Cherry Pond breaks up in the Spring and a good wind drives the chunks up onto shore.  During the winter, the ice would have extended down into the bottom sediments, and during the spring breakup those sediments and some pretty big rocks are carried by the ice chunks and thrust up onto shore. Over the course of a few thousand years, a berm of these rocks and sediments is created. The trail followed the top of it.

Duck in Cherry Pond

I found a bench along the trail overlooking the pond and sat for awhile, hoping maybe the clouds would lift. They didn't budge. Seems like something that happens in the afternoon.

Colonel Whipple Trail

The last trail of this section, the Colonel Whipple Trail, was the longest and most remote. I don't know who Colonel Whipple was, but I love his name. I want him to have invented whipped cream, as in Whipple's Whipped Cream.

Chicken of the Woods

Ahh, there was some Chicken of the Woods, in perfect shape to be sauteed.  I had no way to do that at the motel. And I always feel guilty picking stuff along the trails. Let the other hikers enjoy the pretty orange stuff growing on the tree, and let its spores spread far and wide.

Dalibarba (Dewdrop)

Turtlehead

There were a number of bog walk sections and I started seeing a lot of moose tracks. One of the bog walk planks was broken, and there were moose tracks right next to it. Which got me wondering: Do moose ever step on the bog walks, and does that break the planks? A moose can be over 1,000 pounds. I don't think the bog walks were designed for that.

Moose tracks next to the broken bog walk

The Colonel Whipple Trail looks like a very difficult one to maintain. First, there were all the low areas, which required the bog walks and probably a lot of cutting back during the growing season. Then there was the wooded section with the blowdowns that had been chainsawed.

Blowdown Central

And finally there was the really long section through the brush that must get mowed with a towed mowing deck. The guidebook says this area had been logged not too long ago and that the trail follows a logging road, which explains the culverts. The saplings are said to be having trouble regenerating due to excessive moose browse. The brush is having no such problems, that's for sure.

This must be hard to maintain

This mowed part went on for quite a long ways. The ground was a bit lumpy but otherwise sold, with plenty of moose tracks. If I were a moose I would use the trail, too. Imagine those big beasts trying to get through that thick brush.

Getting closer to the peaks of the Kilkenny

The Colonel Whipple Trail (I cannot say that enough times) comes out onto Whipple Road (excellent), which is gravel.  According to the mileage book, this section was about seven miles. It seemed shorter.

Nice.

As I drove down Whipple Road, I saw a bunch of turkey in a field with the Kilkenny rising up in the background, and stopped to take some photos. I had decided to leave the four-mile road walk until the next morning so I could stretch my legs before the long drive back to Connecticut. And the Kilkenny might be obscured by clouds the next morning, so I wanted a photo while I could get it.

Turkey in the field along Whipple Road, the Kilkenny beyond

I then took a quick drive up to Route 2, following the street-walk route of the Cohos, to the general store in Jefferson. This is where thru hikers can buy supplies. I bought instead a slice of pizza and ate it at the little table inside. It was delicious.

Looking back at Owls Head and Mt. Martha

That afternoon we decided to take the long drive through Crawford Notch down into North Conway. It was Saturday. What a zoo. Gridlock everywhere.  But it's OK, we survived and escaped to live another day. My husband had played 18 holes at Bretton Woods in the morning. It's that place that looks like the hotel from The Shining, so I snapped a photo on the way back from North Conway. The clouds had lifted by then and we could finally see Mt. Washington looming over the famous hotel. It was quite pretty during the two seconds that we sped by.

Bretton Woods, on our way back from North Conway

NH Cohos Trail: Cherry Mountain

Cherry Mountain from Cherry Mtn Road

Let the slackpacking begin! What luxury. Sleeping in on a cushy bed, and no heavy backpack to haul. The goal for the day was simply getting up and over Cherry Mountain, which has two trail summits referred to as Mt. Martha (elev. 3563 ft) and Owl's Head (elev. 3248 ft). We spotted my car at a nice little trailhead parking area on Rt 115 in Jefferson and drove down Cherry Mountain Road back to the trailhead where I was picked up the previous day.

Old road to a former fire tower

The Cohos Trail follows Cherry Mountain Trail up the east side of the mountain for 3.5 miles. It's an old fire tower road that now serves as a snowmobile trail, so the grade is super gentle. It was a steady but very easy climb, gaining maybe 1300 feet in elevation, with great footing. And it was so quiet and peaceful after having been on the highway that is the Appalachian Trail.

There were no trail markings other than the entrance sign and some snowmobile signs. No blazes. The Cohos Trail is said to be "post-graduate" trail for backpackers in part because sections have no markings and people need to be able to figure out which way to go with their map and a compass. I can do that.

Maps.ME screenshot. Yes, I'm on the correct trail.

But I'm not too proud to also use a cell phone and/or gps unit. Last winter I scanned in the Cohos trail map, pulled the images into Google Earth, and digitized the route. Then I exported the route as kml and gpx files, which can be imported into map programs like Google's Maps and Maps.Me. The latter is very handy because it works on your phone when you have no cell phone service. The app also shows a lot of local trails, which can be surprisingly helpful. My digitized route is not very precise, but it's very accurate. In other words, the trail is definitely near where I have it on the map. It may be  a few hundred feet off, but it's not half a mile off. It's good enough to check your progress and to verify that you're on the correct trail, especially when the trail isn't marked for miles.  

Easiest possible way to climb a mountain

I don't think many hikers come this way up the mountain because it's pretty long, so I kept my eyes open for wildlife, scanning the surrounding woods for moose or bear or whatever. I'd stop and just look and listen from time to time.

Twisted Stalk berries

Eventually the trail came to a well-marked junction, with Cherry Mountain Trail continuing left to descend the steeper west side of the mountain and a spur heading on up to the summit. Most people who climb up to Mt. Martha are coming up that steeper route.

Trail junction for hikers and snowmobilers

The spur was moderately steep but lead quickly to the open summit where there used to be a fire tower.

Fireweed and Goldenrod

There were great views south towards the Twins, Garfield and Lafayette. But the higher peaks were all obscured with low clouds, which was disappointing. I hung out a bit hoping for the clouds to lift, but they were not moving one bit. Eventually I heard yahoo voices from down below, heading up towards me. They were coming up the more popular and steeper route. Time to exit.

Mt. Martha summit, looking south towards the Franconia Range

A trail sign pointed the way onward along "Martha's Mile." I saw my first yellow Cohos blazes here. The Connecticut NET was light blue, while most trails after that have been blazed white.

Martha's Mile begins

This section was well blazed and clearly not used much. Seems like a lot of people hike up to Mt. Martha but do not continue to Owls Head. I got the sense that pre-existing trail are not blazed yellow, but any connecting segments specially created for the Cohos Trail have the yellow blazing and maybe some signage.

Martha's Mile, blazed yellow

Approaching the second summit, the trail became very steep with a slick rock scramble. I was glad I didn't have my full pack on.

Rock scramble up to Owl's Head

The views were better on the rocky Owls Head, although Mt. Washington was hidden by clouds.

Owl's Head

Looking down Crawford Notch

There was a mini-scramble up from the Owls Head view point and I managed pulled something in my leg. I suddenly couldn't walk. In these situations I prefer to go into denial and so I took a break and snapped a bunch of photos of lichens and moss. Stepping on a damp rock, I slipped and plopped right on to my butt. Really??  But after a rest, the worst of it passed and I was able to continue downhill. See? Denial works sometimes.

Owls Head Trail begins

Owl's Head Trail descended very steeply down from Owls Head and it was damp and slick. I slipped more times in twenty minutes on Owls Head Trail than I had in four days on the Appalachian Trail, including the rain walk down shear rock.  Apparently the lack of foot traffic is what keeps the rock and roots covered in slime and moss.  My trekking pole (I only had one, but wished for two now) had a rubber tip that did not help much, but I had glued the tip on and couldn't remove it. The rubber tip kept slipping off the slime. Clearly I would need to go back to my metal tips for the rest of the Cohos. I would also switch to my new hiking boots, which have newer treads and more waterproofing.

Cherry Mountain Slide of 1885 started near the top

After the initial steep descent, the grade moderated for the rest of the way and I began looking for signs of the great Cherry Mountain Slide of 1885. The slide started near the top of Owls Head and continued down the mountain for two miles, wiping out Oscar Stanley's new home, just rebuilt after a fire, along with his cattle, barn and crops.  "Oscar Stanley and the two McDonalds were working in the new house and the hired man, Walker, was milking in the barn when they heard a large noise which, at first was mistaken for thunder or a train on the railroad tracks. Oscar, however, ran to the door and saw the mass of dirt coming down the mountain and yelled to his companions and they all ran and barely escaped being swept away by the landslide."  The hired hand was pulled from the rubble but died four days later. 

A 2-mile long landslide came through here

About half way down the mountain, a ravine opened up on the right and I guessed that might be the slide route. I was right. The trail followed the top of the ravine then turned and crossed it before continuing downhill. Apparently the slide was some kind of tourist attraction for awhile. People would take the train and then hike up the Owls Head Trail to see the slide. Down at the trailhead, a history plaque commemorates the event.

Trailhead plaque

By the time I got back to the motel in Twin Mountain, the clouds had lifted from the higher peaks, and Lafayette was visible. The view from the motel was close to the view from Mt. Martha, but from a lower elevation.

Motel view of the Twin Mountain range, Garfield, and Lafayette

My husband came back from his golf game and we relaxed at the motel until we decided to go for a drive. Sadly, all the shops closed up by 6:00 pm. This northwestern part of the White Mountains is interesting. Touristy, but less so. Doesn't seem as prosperous as other parts. There were a surprising number of abandoned buildings and closed up gift shops. We liked it.

But since everything was closed, we headed south on I-93 to North Woodstock, where my daughter and I had had such a good time after climbing Moosilauke. All the delightful shops were open, and after making some purchases and we had a great meal at the Pemi Public House. I've eaten there three times now, and every meal was absolutely delicious.  That one-block area just north of Rt 112 on Route 3 is definitely my favorite touristy spot for all of the western White Mountains.