You Are Here: SRKG Section 3

We had a massive Nor'Easter this past week dumping easily over a foot, sometimes 2 feet of snow in most of southern New Hampshire. I was not interested in any way, shape or form of breaking trail in that much snow. I scoured my to-do list of hikes and saw that SRKG Section 3 was 99% roads. This section is roughly 7.3 miles long, so I knew I couldn't do the whole thing as an out and back, so I decided to do half. It was a bluebird day. I parked at the Sunapee Town Office, which has a large lot that was empty being the weekend. I packed my spikes in case the roads were icy, but didn't end up needing them at all. The very start of this section crosses a very short area off road, that was knee deep in snow.. I could see the road the entire time, but being a purist I did stay on the trail and broke this section out. I wasn't worried about post holing as the section was literally just a few hundred feet long. Back on the road, I followed the SRKG white blazes through the center of downtown and onto Lower Main Street. There is a sidewalk on this busier section thankfully. The trail takes a right onto School Street, although there was an SRKG blaze just past this making it seem as if the trail continued straight. I wasn't sure if maybe it had been rerouted and did start to head in that direction, but saw no more blazes.. so I backtracked to School Street and followed that gently uphill to Sunapee Elementary School. I did get a bit confused at the school as I didn't see any blazes, but I had digital tracks downloaded, so relied on that. From the school, the trail climbs uphill to Dowd Lane. Once in the woods past the school, I did come upon a few blazes. This was the only off road section and thankfully it was very short, maybe a tenth or two long. The snow was mostly knee deep, at times hip deep (for me) and was tough going up the hill. It followed a line of trees uncomfortably close to 2 houses. I kept waiting for one of the residents to come out and see me appearing to be stuck in the snow.. thankfully that did not happen, and I made it out to the street unscathed. Dowd Lane is a cul-de-sac, and there were no blazes, but my digital tracks had me head down the street to Sargent Road. Here I saw a blaze pointing to the left on Sargent Road. This was a dirt road and due to the recent snow/warmer temperatures it was very, very muddy. I carefully made my way down this road in order to not slip and slide landing in the mud! This road descended before joining up with North Road and back onto pavement. Climbing up, the trail takes a right onto Hilltop Drive. Back on a dirt road and follows that around before meeting up with North Road again. Here the trail follows North Road, which is a long straight road, but with relentless ups and downs.. some pretty steep ups too, though short. The main thoroughfare for cars turns right onto Trow Hill Road, although North Road continues as a dirt road which I followed until my turnaround point at Seven Springs Road, roughly halfway along SRKG Section 3. Backtracking along North Road I had gorgeous views over to Mt Sunapee. I had decided if I could I would avoid going back through that knee/hip deep snow off Dowd Lane. Looking at my map, I decided to stay on North Road, avoiding Hilltop Lane, and staying on North Road where Sargent Road forked off. This brought me back to Lower Main St, which I followed all the way back to the main intersection where the Town Offices and my car were. Overall, a great day. I don't mind a road walk every now and then. I'll be back to complete section 3 from the other side at a future date.

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