NH Ad Hoc AT Connector Section 2: Snowmobile Trail #5

Welcome to Columbus Day weekend in New Hampshire. The leaves have changed dramatically since our last visit in September. Almost peak color.

North on the blue line - mostly snowmobile trails

The goal for the next three days of slackpacking was to walk from the Dunbar Library in Grantham to the Appalachian Trail in Hanover, completing an ad hoc connection from the the NET/M-M Trail/M-S Greenway/SRK Greenway trail system to the Appalachian Trail. The drive up from SW Connecticut is getting longer and longer, and it was around lunch time before I even got started.

Grantham town center

The library is located at the foot of a Reney Forest trail that I had walked during the previous visit, in the town center of Grantham. It's a lovely old New England town. Today's walk would start with a quick 1.4-mile roadwalk and then follow snowmobile trails for the rest of the day. Not sure how it would turn out, but I carried two gps receivers and a smart phone with two spare batteries, all loaded with a gps track to follow. And a paper map, of course. Be prepared!

Sugar River with pink flamingos

After a very brief walk on Route 10, I turned onto Dunbar Hill Road and followed that road all the way to the snowmobile trail.  This was a nice walk on a paved but quiet country road, passing farms and woods. It went quickly and there was very little traffic.

Dunbar Hill Road

Fall foliage was nearing peak color. It was beautiful. Classic New Hampshire.

Nice fall foliage along Dunbar Hill Road

After about a mile, Dunbar Hill Road takes a sharp right. There was an old cemetery at the corner, so the road seems to be an old one.

Go right to stay on Dunbar Hill Rd

Dunbar Hill Cemetery 

A bit further, and the entrance to what Google Maps calls "Hart Horn Road" is on the left, marked by a gate just before a large field. This is an old dirt road (Class VI), now used by snowmobiles and occasional vehicles. I turned onto this road.

Start of the snowmobile route on Dunbar Hill Road (in the trees)

I had a gps track of the snowmobile routes, purchased online, and followed that. The route for the first day is shown on the map below (click to enlarge). According to Garmin's Base Camp mapping program, much of the route coincided with what looked like old roads. A good sign for walking.

Snowmobile Trails that were followed

Hart Horn Road turned out to be very nice. It was lined with stone walls in places and appeared to be an old, mostly abandoned road that had once been lined with farms.

View from the beginning of Hart Horn Road

It was a very easy walk heading west, with an occasional mud hole to walk around, but nothing significant. I was relieved to find the trail so easy to walk so far. According to the snowmobile trail map I had, this was a local club trail.

Hart Horn Road (snowmobile trail)

After about a mile and a half, Hart Horn Road comes to a major junction with NH Snowmobile Trail #5, which appears to be more of a regional snowmobile trail.  I took a right to head north on #5.

I think the junction is up ahead.

Heading north on trail #5

This was nice, too. And quiet. It was a Saturday and I didn't see a single person. By the way, yes, I was wearing lots of blaze orange so as not to be confused with a turkey or bear or deer or whatever season it might be.

Snowmobile Trail #5

The trail followed what various maps call Croydon Turnpike. The old turnpikes were improved roads with toll booths to pay for those improvements. Normally they evolved into major modern roadways, but this one was in the middle of nowhere. Old stone walls and a number of stone cellar holes attested to what was previously a farmed area. I imagine the farmers selling off their farms and moving west when the Erie Canal opened up new fertile farmland to the west.

One of many heavy duty bridges

The road wasn't totally abandoned, however, and a number of modern heavy duty bridges spanned stream crossings.

Gateway to Jurassic Park or something

Off to the left for a very long time was a tall fence maybe fifty feet in the woods, parallel with the old turnpike. A gravel road ran alongside this fence, on the opposite side. What the heck? A utility cart went speeding down this road at one point. I started thinking of it as Jurassic Park. What do they have behind that fence?  

"Sawyer Brook Gate Section E"

Later, I looked up the property on the town's handy online GIS maps, and found it to be owned by Blue Mountain Forest Association. Various online sites describe this property as one of the largest and most elite game farms in the entire country. Also known as Corbin Park, the site is about 20,000 acres, has thirty miles of perimeter fencing, and includes Croydon Mountain. Membership is supposedly restricted to thirty people and it cost a million dollars or something to join, but the place is very secretive and nobody really knows. It was founded by Austin Corbin in 1890 and may have something to do with why Croydon Turnpike was abandoned, since he bought out so many of the local farms for his game preserve.  It is said that locals get to hear elk bugling from inside the fence. And wild boar escaped in the '38 hurricane and there may now be a wild boar population on the loose.

After turning onto the old Croydon Turnpike, it's about two miles to the Grantham Town Forest and another mile beyond that to a gorgeous beaver pond (mile six). Although I didn't see or hear any elk from the game farm, I did see a lot of moose tracks throughout this stretch.

Scenic hiking along Croydon Turnpike

Chase Pond

Beaver dam at Chase Pond

That was my favorite spot of the day. Just beautiful. The trail after the pond was pretty muddy for a good stretch, and I had to pick my way around the mud holes.

We've left the turnpike

The snowmobile route leaves the turnpike then, and the walk takes on a different and more variable character. In some areas it follows old roads. In other areas, not.  In a couple of places there was bright yellow CAUTION tape across the trail, but a sign at the tape indicated the tape was just to block motorized vehicles, not pedestrians.  Prior to seeing the sign, I passed one isolated cabin with a family and dogs out front and was worried that I wasn't supposed to be there, but everyone was friendly and it was all good.

Thank you for clarifying :)

The #5 trail route is not always identified at trail junctions, so I would not try to walk this without the gps track (which I'll upload). There were several locations where I would have had no idea which path to take but for my gps. And you can go a very long ways without seeing any trail markings at all.

What a great walk

Hemlock ravine along a stream. Gorgeous. 

And sometimes there are impressive signs. The junctions are numbered, so you can take a picture of the map and keep track of your progress.

Perfect. 

Approaching Methodist Hill Road (my pickup point), the trail had been chewed up by very large machinery, making the footing more difficult and tedious. That went for a good quarter mile or so, maybe more. The area had been selectively logged.

Recently chewed up trail

Following the newly cleared working road out to Methodist Hill Road (mile 8.5), I was confronted by "No trespassing" signs on the other side of the road. Oh no. I walked up and down the street trying to figure out if the snowmobile trail had been rerouted and I just missed it, or what. Didn't find anything. It appeared that the start of the snowmobile route I was going to follow the next morning had been obliterated. Argh!

'No trespassing' signs and logging on the former snowmobile route

Something to ponder overnight after a hot shower and meal at the hotel. Gotta love slackpacking.