You Are Here: Back to Birch Ridge

I was eager to finish Birch Ridge Community Forest before the snow flies.. this would complete my Lakes Region tab on my redlining spreadsheet for the AMC South Trail Guide. I went back to the parking area on Birch Hill Road in New Durham, but this time started across the street, just a very short distance down from the parking entrance. There are some very large boulders that mark the entrance, and if you look carefully a little blue blaze high up on a tree. While I knew the general direction I needed to be heading, this area was a little hard to follow. I started out just a little off track before seeing some blue markers in the trees. You're not going to get lost here as it's all open, but I was trying to be a purist and stay exactly on the trail. Turns out I missed a tiny cairn on my left and a small yellow sign on a tree indicating SELT land, which marks where the trail heads up. From here, the trail crosses the side of the slope, sometimes with an obvious path, sometimes not.. I knew what I was looking for having come out this way last time, and saw the cairn and 2 blazes on the tree indicating Fall Line Trail. A nice steep, yet short climb. Still very leafy, and I was on high alert for any animal life after seeing the bear on my last hike! Just below the top of the trail, I reached the tree with double orange flagging on my left and headed down this new trail, hoping it would rejoin Birch Ridge Trail where I had seen the fork previously. According to the updated map on the SELT website, this is a trail where MTB can cut across. It was flagged with orange tape and easy to follow. I reached the fork and took a right heading back up to the Birch Ridge summit. I continued straight this time to complete Birch Ridge Trail. The trail descended on a wide path before joining South Ridge Trail (called Durgin Road on some maps). I took a left here and descended some more to join Corridor 22 on the snowmobile network. This area was a little less maintained, with some low hanging branches and blowdowns, but nothing to cause any issues. I took a right on Corridor 22 and started a roughly 0.9 rollercoaster of ups and downs. A straightforward snowmobile trail, it was wide and uneventful. I reached a fork where the snowmobile trail veered left, marked with an orange arrow. A trail headed straight through a couple rocks, this connected to Brienne Road, which is gated, and I had wondered if there was room to park here. I took the left and descended down to the gate and was surprised to see a man here, and could see a truck just in from the gate. He wasn't dressed in hiking or hunting gear, so I'm not sure what he was doing. He unnerved me, so I made quick haste continuing on my way along Corridor 22. He didn't look scary or anything, I was just taken aback at someone being out here without seeming to fit the narrative of someone who would be out here if that makes sense! He made no contact with me, and I didn't see him again after that. The trail continued to descend and reached a kiosk at the bottom marking a junction with a sharp left turn for Corridor 22 or continuing on what is marked as Mountain Pasture Road. I took the left turn and was met with straight up! Not technical, since it was still a snowmobile trail, it was definitely up. I climbed for about 0.5 miles and met the intersection marked as Lookout Trail on the SELT map. The sign at the intersection just says "scenic lookout". I headed down and was surprised to come up on the scenic view quicker than I had expected. The trail continued on my digital download, so I kept going wondering if there was another more formal lookout further down. The trail descended and eventually became rather grown in. Pink flagging continued, and it was marked on my digital map as going on, so I did just that.. it became more grown in, and I could tell there wasn't going to be another lookout, so once I reached the end of the digital trail, and what seemed like the last pink flag, I turned back around and retraced my steps. This time I stopped at the lookout and had a quick break. I think I was looking over towards my own neighborhood and Blue Job Mountain (as I could see a tower), but I'm never any good at identifying what I'm looking at. Once rested, I retraced my steps back to South Ridge Trail. Took the left and returned back to my car.

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