Wildlife Encountered

Moose on the Cohos Trail in "Moose Alley"

I don't have the best photos, but if you're wondering what kind of wildlife you might encounter hiking the NET-Cohos route,  this page is for you. 

Sometimes people are worried about wildlife being dangerous, but there isn't much to be concerned about in New England so long as backpackers follow good practices regarding their food and other scents that may attract bears. And respect moose, which are enormous and can run much faster than you.  With the exception of a bear at my tent in Connecticut, I was more concerned about off-leash dogs guarding houses I had to walk past on isolated roads (look away and walk slowly and deliberately is my strategy). 

Moose: Let's start with everyone's favorite, the iconic moose. If you're doing the trail northbound, the first area you might start seeing moose sign is near Lake Quabbin in central Massachusetts. The tracks and poo look like they came from a giant deer. Generally speaking, the further north you get, the more moose activity you'll see.  I finally saw an actual moose on my penultimate day of hiking near the Canadian border in New Hampshire's "Moose Alley." He was sleeping near the trail and slowly rose to his feet when he saw me. We looked at each other for a moment and then he turned and slowly walked away. It was great. 

There were three other times I heard moose along the trail. One was camping on Mt. Sunapee (on the M-S Greenway), when I heard one speeding down the trail past my tent at night (the trail was plastered in poo and tracks). The second was up in Moose Alley when I heard a moose calling down in a swamp below. The last was in the White Mountains. While scouting for a place to hang my bear bag one evening, I came to an active 'moose scraping' about 100 feet from my tent. This is where bull moose in rut scrape the ground and leave their scent by peeing all over it. As soon as it got dark, I heard the moose over there stamping and scraping up a storm. I was a little nervous being in a flimsy tent so close to a rutting moose, but I've never heard of a moose attacking a tent. 

Other hikers on the Cohos have described moose encounters, including some chases!  (Tip: always grant the right of way to a moose). 

The bear I just chased away from my tent in
Connecticut's Bear Alley

Black Bear: Connecticut now has a "Bear Alley" and I can almost guarantee that your tent will be visited by an overly tame bear looking for easy food if you're backpacking. This is in the northern part of the state along the New England Trail (Simsbury, Avon, Granby). The bear population has just exploded in Connecticut over the past few years, especially in the northwest and north central parts of the state. There's no bear hunting, and a lot of suburbanites are pretty careless about leaving food outside. The result is a lot of fearless bears going from house to house looking for food, and sometimes even breaking into homes and opening up freezers. 

White-Footed Mouse on the NET

I was focused on brushing wet pine needles off my tent one morning when I looked up and discovered a bear on the other side of my tent not 15 feet away. It was bewildering that such a large, jet black animal could sneak up without me seeing or hearing it. The tent was empty, and my food was still hanging in a tree nearby. The bear just seemed to be curious about the tent. He was not persuaded by my yelling at him. So I pulled the garbage bag liner out of my nearby pack and gave it a violent snap. He just about did a backflip, ran behind a tree, and stopped to peer back at me (above photo).  Phew! Mostly these tame bears are like affable retrievers looking for cheeseburgers, but occasionally one can get dangerous. So you never know.

Of course there are bears throughout the length of the trail, but not as many and not as tame as the ones in Connecticut's Bear Alley (Connecticut is the only state in the region without bear hunting). At any rate, it's always important to be prepared for bears if you're backpacking, but be especially vigilante in northern Connecticut.  Be absolutely sure there are no interesting scents in your tent!

Porcupine, Fauver East Trail, 
Plymouth, NH ("Ghost Trail")

Porcupine are always a lot of fun to run into while hiking. They're absent from southern Connecticut, but always a possibility as you head north.  They'll invariably wobble over to a tree and scramble up it, looking back down at you from time to time in annoyance.  I only saw one during the entire trip. It was near Plymouth and it left behind some quills while hustling up a tree.  Porcupine are a good reason to keep a dog leashed. I've personally had to deal with pulling out dozens of quills from my terrier's face after she cornered a porcupine under a large boulder in northern Connecticut, and it's not fun. 

Black Rat Snakes are typically
4-5 feet long, but harmless

Snakes: Several times I came across Black Rat Snakes sunning themselves on the trap rock ridges of the NET in Connecticut.  Although they look pretty dramatic and are usually four or five feet long, they are super chill and nothing to fear. You can get really close to take a photo and they'll barely move. By far the most common snake along the entire trail is the harmless Garter Snake. I bet I saw dozens. Note that there's a slight chance of encountering a venomous copperhead  along the traprock ridges, but it's very unlikely. In all the hiking I've done across Connecticut over several decades, I've only encountered a copperhead once. That said, a friend recently showed me a picture of a copperhead they saw at Mt. Higby along the NET. So you never know. Watch where you put your hands. 

Spruce Grouse, Cohos Trail, Kilkenny section

Birds:  I'm going to skip over songbirds here except to note the adorable Canada Jay (aka Gray Jay) that befriended me at the Cabot Mountain cabin (actually I think it was trying to steal some food I was cooking up). The most memorable bird encounter I had was probably the Spruce Grouse that was also near the Mt Cabot cabin. It was delightfully tame and looked sort of like a Ruffed Grouse but with a bright red patch on its face (I had to look up the species ID later). We hung out together for five minutes or so. The Spruce Grouse is a northern species that mostly lives in Canada and Alaska. Other Cohos hikers have shared similar photos of tame Spruce Grouse in the same area, so you might see one. There are plenty of the more common Ruffed Grouse (aka partridge) along the NET-Cohos that will flush up noisily as you walk past and you might hear them drumming their wings as a mating call. You don't usually get a good look at them and they certainly don't pose for you like the Spruce Grouse. 

Turkey are mostly seen from the road

Turkey are common along the route from end to end, but there seem to be a lot more of them after you leave the trap rock ridges behind. Northern Massachussetts to central New Hampshire seemed to have the most. I didn't see many turkey in the woods, but walking or driving along the roads there were often large flocks.  The house we rented near Sunapee was visited by a flock of 35 turkey. I don't know why there were so many more turkey in these areas. Maybe a combination of plentiful oaks & beech along with possibly fewer coyote?

Ravens make some of the weirdest noises in the forest. I saw and heard plenty of raven especially near areas with cliffs. 

I'll give a shout out to the Bald Eagle that swooped down and almost hit our windshield as we were headed up I-91 in Massachusetts for a weekend of hiking the trail. We missed the eagle by inches. Wow, they are big. The Connecticut River was nearby, and the eagle was probably hunting both the river and the highway. 

Newts: The Red Eft is a hiker favorite, often found on trails during wet weather. I had a day in New Hampshire where I walked over more than a hundred of these tiny amphibians. It was hard not to step on them.  I didn't encounter any of these north of the White Mountains, or at the higher elevations, and there may be fewer along the dry trap rock ridges of Connecticut. The sweet spot seemed to be northern Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire. The Red Eft is interesting in that it's the terrestrial phase of the Eastern Spotted Newt. The aquatic stage looks completely different, being a drab olive color a flattened tail like a fish. Although the Red Eft stage is typically thought of as the adult stage, this newt can actually revert back to the 'juvenile' aquatic stage if conditions are favorable. 

Red Eft stage of the Eastern Spotted Newt

Walking past a tiny mud puddle near the northern end of the NET in Massachusetts, I came upon a swarm of nineteen newts, presumably breeding. This was on an unmaintained dirt road that gets a lot of off-road vehicles. Just a puddle in the tire ruts. 

Red Efts swarming in a mudhole

Squirrels & Chipmunks: I had a Red Squirrel jump on my leg. I was standing very still on the Crawford-Ridgepole Trail ("Ghost Trail" option) pondering something, when the squirrel came bounding up the trail. Jump-pause-jump-pause, getting closer and closer until it jumped right onto my leg. It quickly realized its mistake and scurried off. I could feel his little claw marks in my skin for half an hour.  Hard to say which of us was more surprised. You'll see lots of Grey Squirrels and Red Squirrels along the NET-Cohos, the former in areas with a lot of oak trees (southern/lower elevations) and the latter in areas with spruce and pine (northern/higher elevations).  Chipmunks are just everywhere, which you might not notice unless you're walking a leashed dog who hopes to catch every single one of them. 

Fox: I saw a Gray Fox at the base of Mt. Moosilauke.  I've encountered many Red Fox in Connecticut (sometimes napping in my backyard), but never a Gray Fox. Red Fox are not originally from New England, but came down from open areas of the Arctic and have adapted really well to farms and suburbs. Gray Fox were the original (native) New England fox, but they need dense forests to thrive, like the forest on Moosilauke. So it was a treat to finally see one. 

Deer in Connecticut will freeze and watch you walk past

Deer: There are a bazillion White Tailed Deer in Connecticut. There's an inverse relationship between moose and deer as you go north, so if you're in prime New Hampshire moose habitat, you probably aren't seeing many deer. But in Connecticut, which only rarely sees a moose passing through, there are so many deer that they cause a lot of damage to the forests.  They will typically freeze as you walk past, not panic and jump through the forest like they do in areas that heavily hunted.  Therefore there's a good chance of not noticing them while hiking unless you're really looking. Having said that, the NET does pass through areas open to hunting, so wear your orange if hiking in the fall. There are poachers who don't respect hunting seasons or property lines.  On the nearby Shenipsit Trail one October, a poacher shot a backyard deer near the trail as I was approaching. The lung-shot deer ran a short ways and dropped right on the trail. It wasn't firearm season for deer yet, but I had my blaze orange hat on just in case and was glad for it. 

Hermit Crab in Long Island Sound

Long Island Sound: The NET-Cohos route starts on Long Island Sound and there are all sorts of animals there. If the tide is low, you might find some little hermit crabs, or Green Crabs, or some other kind of crab. Mostly you find their shells on the shore along with shells of Quahog clams, mussels, slipper, boat shells, and snails. Terns, seagulls, and the smell of the ocean. Even if you're eager to get started, hold off for a bit and enjoy this place. 

The Working Landscape

 

Guilford Train Station:
The NET uses the covered walkway to cross the commuter line

If you're going to hike across New England all the way from Long Island Sound to Canada, it helps to have an appreciation of the working landscape. Because of course you're not walking across a vast pristine wilderness. Millions of people live and work here, and people have been managing the landscape for thousands of years. 

The four-mile road walk from Long Island Sound in Guilford sets a nice baseline. Here is Southern New England, land of busy commuters. Shortly after leaving the shoreline behind, the blue blazes of the New England Trail lead you inside the Guilford Train Station and up some stairs in order to cross over the commuter line railroad tracks. Hop on a train here, and you can be at Grand Central Station in Manhattan in an hour or so.  The trail then takes you past houses and stores and museums to cross Route 1 (the famous colonial "Post Road" between New York City and Boston) and over I-95.  A whole lot of infrastructure to get people from houses to jobs. Watch the cars zipping by and be happy you're hiking and not commuting to work.  

Trap rock ridges absorb water for drinking water reservoirs
(Trimountain and Ulbrich Reservoir)

Through most of Connecticut and the southern half of Massachusetts, the New England Trail follows the Metacomet Ridge, which is all trap rock. This ridgetop hosts a narrow ribbon of green cutting through the suburban sprawl. The main reason it's green, and not a bunch of McMansions with views, is because people long ago realized how effective the trap rock ridges were at collecting and filtering drinking water. Water drains right through the hard basalt (surprisingly) and is collected in reservoirs maintained at the base of the ridge. The MDC lands? That's Hartford's water supply. The porous nature of the rock is also why finding water is one of the biggest challenges of backpacking the New England Trail - there's rarely any water up there on the ridge. At any rate, you're not walking through some nature preserve per se. You're walking across a drinking water collection and filtering system for all those homes in the valley below.

Tilcon Quarry at Mt. Chauncey

You can't escape the massive trap rock quarries while hiking the New England Trail. They become landmarks. The hard but brittle trap rock is crushed and used in construction. If you're hiking during the week, you might be able to watch the operation in progress. Giant trucks that look like ants down below. Are the quarries ugly scars upon the landscape, or impressive examples of human ingenuity? Maybe a little of both.

Cell phone and radio towers are another common occurrence along the trap rock ridges. That's why there's always a really good cell phone signal up on the trap rock.  Go ahead ... call up an Uber to the nearest hotel for the night.

Rich farmland along the Connecticut River in Massachusetts

Moving north along the NET, there are scattered farms down below. Some of the richest farmland seems to be in the Connecticut River Valley. The old M-M Trail used to go through the middle of a cornfield after crossing the river, but that section was sadly closed after the trail gained federal status as the New England Trail. 

Ski facilities at Ragged Mountain in New Hampshire

Outdoor recreation becomes more economically important as you head north into New Hampshire, and you're going to share the forest with other types of users. There are several ski slopes, including the ones at Mt. Sunapee, Ragged Mountain, and Dixville Notch in New Hampshire.  This is one of those winter activities that tends not to impact seasonal hikers very much, and you get some nice views where they've cleared out the trees. 

Following snowmobile trail 5N through the New Hampshire gap

Snowmobiling is another form of income-generating recreation for New Hampshire, and there are miles of official snowmobile trails crossing the state. The NET-Cohos route through New Hampshire often follows a snowmobile trail.  For the most part, snowmobilers and hikers are on the trail in different seasons and there's no conflict. 

Deer & Turkey registration station
Mt. Sunapee

Hunting and fishing are another type of recreation you might run into along the trail. In some cases, the trail might cross sportsman club land with permission, as the New England Trail does in Guilford, or the SRK Greenway does on Ragged Mountain. Don't be surprised if you hear gunfire there, or at some of the shooting ranges nearby. Most hunting takes place in late fall when the leaves are brown, but there are different seasons for different types of hunting, and I start wearing blaze orange once the leaves start turning. I had a group of guys hunting bear pass me at one point on the M-M Trail in New Hampshire.  There's no bear hunting in Connecticut, which explains why that one bear was so relaxed while checking out my empty tent in Simsbury.  There's deer hunting in Connecticut, though, and I once had a backyard poacher shoot a deer near me while backpacking before firearm season had started. The lung-shot deer fled maybe 100 yards through the state forest and dropped beside the trail just before I got to it. I was never so happy to be wearing blaze orange. 

Active logging, with windmill on the horizon
Cohos Trail at Kelsey Notch

Windmills capture the wind's energy along some of New Hampshire's ridges. There aren't very many, so they've never bothered me. If they were all over that might be different.  A section of the Cohos Trail passes so close to one that the sound of the blades cutting through the wind was audible. 

Logging is a major industry, of course. You don't see much logging along the NET because the traprock ridgeline is usually part of a drinking watershed or park. But there's lots of active timber management as you pass through the northern forests. More interesting might be the remnants of earlier logging, especially the old logging railroads and network of fire towers. 

Smarts Mountain Fire Tower
Appalachian Trail

The old fire towers are often still standing and are now scenic attractions for hikers. It's easy to forget how important the fire towers once were. Fires started by trains or fireplaces would burn vast areas of timberland, along with fancy mountain hotels. So loggers and the hotel people got together and worked to create a network of fire towers. 

Old logging railroad through the White Mountains
Nancy Pond Trail near Mt. Carrigain

The old logging railroads are especially noticeable if you take the eastern gap route option through White Mountain National Forest near TriMountain and Mt. Carrigain. The amount of work that went into building the railroad system in the White Mountains is amazing when you consider that the forest was clear-cut once and that was it. The tracks were no longer needed. 

Old stands of Paper Birch that sprouted up after logging fires
Cohos Trail in the Kilkenny

Another reminder of the previous logging and the fires that were created is the type of trees growing.  The combination of dry logging slash left on the ground and sparks flying out of trains lead to some big fires in the White Mountains. After the fires, hillsides of Paper Birch sprouted. You can see this walking the Cohos Trail in the Kilkenny area. Paper Birch doesn't live very long, and it doesn't resprout very well in a growing forest, so there are big stands of old, dying Paper Birch along the trail. 

ATV road, Cohos Trail

Once you get pretty close to Canada in the Pittburg area, it is suddenly ATV land. There are ATV roads and ATV rentals and ATV clubs.  Cottages and campgrounds are advertised to accommodate ATVs. It's a completely different scene from ATV usage in Connecticut, which is typically a 14-year old boy thrill riding illegally on someone else's property and ripping up hiking trails.  These New Hampshire ATVs are ridden legally by men and women of all ages and they often have roll cages for safety.  Some locals  told me they didn't personally like the ATVs, but it brought in lots of tourist dollars.  It's the same view as someone who makes a living off of logging or digging a quarry might have. They don't necessarily like seeing all the trees cut, but it pays the bills. 

A part of the Cohos Trail currently follows ATV roads, but there are thankfully plans to reroute that, because hiking and ATVs are not compatible. The noise and dust and fear of being struck by a vehicle is exactly what hiker-types are typically trying to avoid, which is why they're hiking and not just walking down a street. There are other areas along the Cohos where you hear the ATVs, sadly, even though the trail is not following an ATV road. Both times I was above Dixville Notch, for example, the experience was marred by the sound of a single ATV down below.  But what can you do. I guess you just have to expect the sound of ATVs at the north end of the trail the same way you know you're going to hear traffic noise in Connecticut.