NH SRKG Section 2: Old Province Road to Sunapee Village

SRK Greenway marker pointing down Old Provindence Road

Onward north along the next trail: The Sunapee-Ragged-Kearsarge Greenway (SRK Greenway). To review, this all started in Guilford, Connecticut on the New England Trail, which turned into the M-M Trail in New Hampshire, which continued on at the M-S Greenway between Mt Monadnock and Mt Sunapee. And now the way north is marked with green and white trail markers.

View along Goshen Road

The SRK Greenway is a great big loop of a trail. I'm just doing the part that heads north from Sunapee.  A lot of it is road walking, including the first couple miles after reaching the bottom of Mt. Sunapee. That part was nearly all downhill and went super fast.

Harding Hill Road

Some of it was gravel and some was asphalt, but none of it was too bad. There were cattle and wild turkey to watch on Harding Hill Road as the turnoff approached.

Trail network at Webb Woods

The trail then takes a turn into Webb Woods and meanders about a nice forest crossed with various trails, including snowmobile trails. I was a bit concerned about missing a turn, but there was always a marker where I most needed to see one.

Easy

After the backpacking on Mt Lovewell and Mt Sunapee, this was super easy walking. It was a Monday morning and I never passed a single person.

Variable terrain

The terrain was highly variable, though, as the trail passed back and forth between mixed forests of white pine, dark hemlock hollows, and open meadow areas. None of it was difficult.

Snowmobile trail

This continued on for roughly five miles. I began seeing signs with a numbering system, for what, I don't know.

What are these numbers?

The trail crossed Hells Corner Road (yes, that's a real name) and came to Frank Simpson Reserve.

This was a beautiful section of trail, although there were an excessive number of large, tacky signs with the mystery numbering system.

Beaver Pond

The highlight of the hike was a beaver pond. No moose or beaver in sight, but there was an inland shorebird working the mud that may be a Solitary Sandpiper. This kind of bird looks like it belongs on an ocean beach or marsh, but lives inland.

Solitary Sandpiper (?)

Vermilion Waxcap (?)

The trail continued on for a bit further through scenic, peaceful woods. There was going to be a lot of road walking up ahead, so I slowed down and savored it.

Last real woodland hiking trail for awhile

My car had been spotted at a the Albert Tilton recreation area on Route 103b, so that's where I stopped for the time being.

Albert Tilton park

Walking down Rt. 103B towards Sunapee Village

After a few hours back at the hotel while my husband was playing 18 rounds of golf, the weather turned warm and sunny. I wanted to get outside and walk some more, so we spotted my car further along the way, then set out together to walk from Albert Tilton down to the nearby village of Sunapee.

I spy a trail marker behind the power station

After a walk down Rt 103b, we found a trail marker behind a powerstation and followed it a very short ways to a pedestrian bridge. Nice. Wasn't expecting that.

That lead to the back side of a small welcome center. Had no idea where to go after that. We meandered about for a bit and my husband finally spotted a marker on the other side of busy Route 11 on Lower Main Street.

Nice, but which way do we go now? 

We parted ways so that my husband go walk down towards the big lake and explore the village, while I continued on towards my parked car.

Trail marker on Lower Main Street

The markers went along the road for a bit and then just stopped. I finally pulled up Google Map and decided I needed to turn on North Street. After a bit, the blazes suddenly started up again.*

North Street

This was a lot of uphill on a paved road. Eventually a look back revealed Mt Sunapee in the distance.

Hilltop Drive

The trail turned onto gravel Hilltop Drive for a bit, providing relief from the pavement, but it didn't last long before turning back onto North Street. Although not ideal, the road walk went pretty fast, and I listened to more of my podcast story.

Cemetery on North Street

My car was parked along the road next to a cemetery on North Street. There's more of a parking area further north, but I wasn't sure I could get there before dark.

* On the drive back (southbound), I followed some street markings for the greenway going down Sargent Road to Dowd Lane, where a narrow trail between driveways left the road between houses at the end of the cul-de-sac. That agreed with the map I had found online, although I didn't know how old the map was and it was poor resolution. (I wasn't able to purchase a current map & description in time for this hike). My husband later said he also saw greenway markers down in Sunapee Harbor when he went to check that out (also noting no shops or restaurants were open).  The next afternoon we were at a bookstore, and I took a peek at the description for that section. After reading it, I was still unclear about the markers down by the lake, but the description had the trail turning north off of Lower Main Street at School Street and coming out onto Dowd Lane where I saw the markers during my drive. However, the markers on Lower Main Street definitely lead me well past School Street and I was looking very closely for a potential turn there. I always go by the trail markers rather than the description and map because trail routes change all the time and it can take years for published information to map the new trail route. Bottom line is I still have no idea what the correct route is for the trail in Sunapee.

NH MSG Sections 5 & 6a: Washington Center to Galpin Shelter

The "friendliest town" award goes to: Washington Center

Welcome to Section 5 of the Monadnock-Sunapee Greenway. This section begins in Washington Center, which is my new favorite town. It was definitely the friendliest town I've encountered in my walks up from Long Island Sound. Every single person I passed either waved or cheerfully exclaimed, "Good Morning!" with one person adding, "Welcome to Washington!"

Road walk past a museum

It was a Saturday morning around 10:30 am and a small farmer's market had set up at the crossroads while a musician played some pipes out front.  After lingering there a bit and chatting with the farmers, I headed down the road past some historical monuments and a big old barn that is now some kind of museum.

Halfmoon Pond boat launch

This first section is a road walk, but not a bad one. Half Moon Pond Road goes past the boat launch for Half Moon Pond. A cold wind was whipping across the water, after a drastic cold front that arrived the night before. The first crisp air of the season.

Lovell Mtn Rd

The trail then turns onto a 4WD road and follows that for a good ways. It can be so easy to miss a turn off of a road like this, but it was very well marked. Thank you!

Effective turn sign

No more slackpacking this trail: I was carrying a fully-loaded backpack for a two-night trip in cold weather (it would turn out to be a one-night trip, but I think I had enough food for five days in there). Loaded packs always seem so much heavier than you remembered them being when you first put them on. Especially if you're going uphill.

Lots of cairns going up this mountain

After the trail turned off the road and became a real hiking trail walks, it wasted no time climbing Lovewell Mountain, about a 1,000-foot elevation gain. It was a beautiful hike, and even though it was a Saturday I only passed one set of hikers on my way up. Probably the cold wind kept the hikers away, but it was invigorating.

Reindeer lichen, spruce, and fir on the upper slopes

It was lunchtime by the time I got to the shoulder or false summit of the mountain. It had been a busy morning driving up from Connecticut before the hike, but I'd stopped at the Washington General Store beforehand to buy one of their delicious grinders. Now was the time to enjoy half of that. Mmmm.

Top of Lovell Mtn

The walk up wasn't overly steep, just a relentless path upwards through the spruce and fir, and eventually I was at the top of the world with some great views.

Nice job with the signs and trail register.

They've done a great job along this trail with signs, trail registers, maps, etc. Signs take a lot of work. Just installing a sign is a lot of work.

First moose tracks of the trip

It was an easy trip back down the other side, and I found myself at the Max Israel Shelter at 2 pm. I was expecting to spend the night here, but it was so early. And it there was a very cold wind ripping through the place, so hanging out at the camping area didn't sound like much fun. I decided to stop and eat the rest of my sandwich and ponder my options. The next shelter was about another six miles up the trail with another 1,000 foot elevation gain. Sunset was around 6:30 pm, so I had about four hours.  Yes. I could make it.

Max Israel Shelter

Invigorated with a new goal, I abandoned Plan "A" and the Max Israel Shelter (which, by the way, has zero cell phone signal) and headed down the trail towards the Steve Galpin Shelter.

Bog Brook

The trail continued down Lovewell Mountain, crossed Half Moon Pond Road (gravel) and Bog Brook, then began the climb up to the ridge that extends north to Mt. Sunapee. I counted four significant climbs on the map between me and the Galpin Shelter. That was the first one.

The first of four more hills

The next climb was Kittredge Hill. With my faster pace and heavy pack, this hill did me in. Good footing, though. No reason to slow down.

Gorgeous and peaceful section of trail

There were some other trails coming in from the west side of Pillsbury State Park, but there were no hikers to be seen. All was peaceful.

Miles of beautiful trail

Eventually I got over the remaining hills and came to Moose Lookout about a quarter mile south of the Galpin Shelter.

Moose Lookout

And there were plenty of moose track and moose poop right there at the Moose Lookout and all the way to the campsite.

Yup. Moose at Moose Lookout. 

Yay! I made it. Just in time to bundle up in layers of warm clothes, set up the tent, hang a bear bag, and cook some noodles before dark. Barely. I sat in the shelter for awhile, but abandoned that idea after hearing lots of animal sounds under the shelter.

Steve Galpin Shelter at Moose Lookout

Sitting in my tent after it got dark, I heard some animal do a deep snort-cough-grunt as it went down the trail. I don't know what that was, but I'm guessing it was a moose passing by, giving off an alarm after it smelled me nearby in the tent. Seemed like a good time to get back to that Stephen King book I was reading, so that's what I did.

No mice can run across my face in this tent. 

NH MSG Section 4: Pitcher Mountain to Washington Center

Climbing out of the fog on Pitcher Mountain

The Pitcher Mountain parking lot on Rt 123 was dark and gloomy in fog and we didn't expect to be able to see anything up at the fire tower, but my husband strolled up the white-blazed service road with me to check it out. It's about 0.4 mile to the tower with an elevation gain of about 300 feet, so it's a popular place to visit, but no one was there on a foggy Saturday morning. The fog began to thin as walked, though, and when we came to a big meadow with cows, sunbeams were casting fog shadows from the trees.

Fire Tower up above the fog

By the time we got to the top, which took no time at all, we were out of the fog an there was a brilliant blue sky above us. The view was mostly clouds, though, with only the very tip of Mt. Monadnock visible to the south and a couple peaks to the north. The closer one looked like it might be Mt. Sunapee.  Maybe the other one is Mt. Kearsarge.

Looking north towards Mt. Sunapee 

The trail meanders through some very open brushy areas, popular with blueberry pickers,  before heading back into the woods. There seems to be a minimalist approach to these areas, so you'll be wading through vegetation and getting wet if there's morning dew. There is a maze of berry-picking trails through the brush and it's possible to take a wrong turn, but I had no trouble spotting the white blazes on rocks when needed.

Signed trail junction on Mt. Pitcher

Methods for markings turns in the M-S Greenway vary as you follow the trail. For much of the trail, there will be two blazes, one directly over the other, to give you a heads up. And then that will be followed by an arrow tacked to a tree or post. This is a lot better than the New Hampshire portion of the M-M Trail, which just gave you two aligned blazes but no indication which way the trail turned. But why not just use the standard offset blazes, the higher blaze indicating the direction of the turn?

A different kind of turn blaze

Another kind of turn blaze I started seeing was different but intuitive. The upper blaze formed a right angle indicating the direction of the turn. Seems like more work to paint than offset blazes, but it's pretty obvious which way the trail goes.

This is just wrong

When I finally found some standard turn blazes, they were wrong. This was at a major four-way junction. The northbound blazes indicated a left turn while an arrow tacked above them showed a right turn. It was the same coming from the opposite direction. If someone were to tamper with the arrow and remove it, the blazes would take people the wrong way. There were more standard turn blazes further down the trail, but at this point I didn't trust them.

Long gravel roadwalk through Andorra Forest

Anyhow, after Pitcher Mountain the trail heads through Andorra Forest, which is pretty big. There's a hiking trail portion through the trees and then you follow a gravel park road for a good ways up to the top, which is another cleared brushy area like the top of Pitcher Mountain. The road ends and the trail just keeps going forward through the brushy hilltop for a quite awhile.

YEAH!!

An unexpected "MSG Half Way" sign put a big smile on my face. Yeah!

Bear been eating apples?

There were a lot of berries that looked sort of like highbush blueberries but not exactly. Chokeberries (not to be confused with chokecherries). Wondered if that might bring in the bear. Maybe I would see one. I didn't, but one had left a calling card filled with apples.

Lots of black chokeberries. May explain the bear. 

A very tall sign marked the top of Hubbard Hill, then it was a sudden transition back into the forest. Loved the contrast between the cleared hilltops and deep, dark forest.

And back into the forest

A nice trail walk and then yet another cleared hilltop, this one Jackson Hill. What a great hike.

Jackson Hill

A bit further on, a sign from 2016 explains that the trail head is being used as a logging road, but there is a blue-blazed alternative that might be more enjoyable. Decisions, decisions. The sign was two years old, so I figure the logging was probably done. I'd read about this section in the guidebook, which warned about a section that was sometimes flooded by beaver as much as 3 feet deep, also suggesting the blue-blazed alternative. This notice on the tree said the flooding problem had been resolved with the logging operations. You mean I don't get to use the water shoes??  I was almost going to take the blue route, but it said it was steeper, and the rock underfoot was wet, so I settled on the white-blazed route.

Decision, decisions

The trail soon skirted a small pond where a beaver had dropped a striped maple across the trail and had been cutting off the tips of the branches and dragging them into the water. Soon after was a small beech that had also been dropped across the trail, but the beaver wasn't eating this one.  Deer won't even eat beech unless they're starving. They can die of starvation with a belly full of beech.

Another beaver pond

I was glad I chose to stay on the main trail because on the way down I got to follow some moose tracks for a good ways. They take big steps. It was a good three feet between each walking footstep.

Moose tracks!

The logging road was still active and I passed some machinery, but it was a Saturday and no one was working. There weren't any big mudholes or tracks to walk through, which was my biggest fear. The treadway was solid. Looked to me like more than a logging road, though. More like someone was getting ready to build some houses.

Jefts Road - still a construction zone.

The spot that used to flood from beaver was still a bit flooded, with a water flowing across the road a few inches deep, but I didn't need to take my boots off.

Beaver Pond still flooding the road a bit

The logging road (called Jefts Road on the trail map) ended at Kings Road, an improved gravel road open to traffic. The trail followed this road past the "Mother Church" of the Seventh Day Adventists, a Protestant sect. There is hiker parking here and it was my original destination point, but I was making great time and texted my husband that I would head on to Washington Center.

Seventh Day Adventist Church on King Street

The trail followed the gravel road up hill and then turned onto paved Faxon Hill Road for a spell before taking a right turn past a gate into some open woods.

Finally turning off the road here

I almost missed seeing the left turn arrow taking me out of the cleared way, and the path leading from this area was pretty overgrown and hard to spot. But luck was with me this day.

Nearly missed this turn

Back into the cool, dark forest for a steady climb up Oak Hill and the first steep section since Monadnock. Kinda got used to all that easy stuff.

Steepest part of the entire weekend

The top of Oak Hill was partly cleared and brushy. More views. I tried to get a good view of Monadnock, but couldn't quite get above the tops of the brush to see fully in that direction. Great views to the west, however.

Oak Hill

Heading north along the flat open hilltop was a delight. I would have spent more time, but got a text that my ride was in Washington Center and so I needed to pick up the pace.

Northbound down Oak Hill

The hike down was lovely, although there was one open, overgrown spot where I couldn't locate a blaze or the trail tread, so I turned on my gps unit to mark my location before meandering through the forest looking for the next blaze. Found the trail pretty quickly after that, though.

Washington Center at the General Store

Down at the bottom there should be a law that all hikers have to stop at the Washington General Store, which is hiker friendly. We sat outside at the picnic table and ate some amazing sandwiches with so many fixings you almost couldn't take a bite. They also sell M-S Greenway hats, shirts, and maps. I got the hat. And then we hopped in the car and headed home to Connecticut.

Thank you. I'll take a sandwich. And an ice cream. And a Greenway hat.