You Are Here: Monadnock-Sunapee Greenway

I had one large section (roughly 8 miles) and then 0.2 miles right at the top of Monadnock left to complete the entire Monadnock-Sunapee Greenway. Today, thanks to a car spot with Laura, I knocked out that last big 8 mile section.. and I'll finish the very last 0.2 miles next year when the snow melts. I have enjoyed almost all the MSG more than I ever anticipated.. this section wasn't my most favorite, but it wasn't the worst thing I've done either! We spotted the car on Brown Road in Harrisville. The small parking area I had used before was roped off, but there was a pull off alongside the road with room enough to get the car off the road. We then drove back to the Route 9 parking area for the MSG off South Road. We geared up, and headed out. The trail starts on a section where the trees almost create a tunnel like effect and immediately starts a gentle climb. The trail was wide, I'm not sure if this is snowmobile in Winter, or an old road and the footing started off good. We passed the Stoddard/Nelson town line and then a thru hiker trash can. After a left turn, the footing became more eroded and rougher. There was ice, but it was all avoidable thankfully. The climbing continued and seemed to go on forever, but in reality was just under a mile from the car. The trail, which was even wider now, improved footing somewhat, though still gravel and descended about half a mile to a pond with a bridge across. Another very brief gentle climb before descending down out of the woods into a neighborhood and really steep descent on hard packed dirt road. The road crossed a stream before climbing back up to reach the center of Nelson, which has no services, just a lovely church. Here the trail turns left onto paved Nelson Road and follows it for just under half a mile before turning left onto dirt Tolman Pond Road. This section was mostly roads, but they were quiet roads today with only a few cars passing us all day. Tolman Pond Road heads back up through the beautiful back country of Nelson. Take a slight right onto Cabot Road, this section wasn't marked as well, but we were following a digital download, so had no issue navigating. Just keep looking for the white rectangle blazes. This might have been my favorite stretch. Quiet country road with some views over towards Crotched Mountain. As the road is descending, the Greenway re-enters the woods on the right at a giant glacial boulder. It is marked, but the sign is a bit small, and we almost missed it. The next mile or so is back on trail. An initial descent to a very, muddy area then turns into a short moderate climb before descending again. Here we passed the only other hiker we saw today, he appeared to be a NoBo thru hiker. It was very leafy, with the leaves covering rocks, roots and mud.. this slowed us down a little and seemed very, very tedious. We were also starting to get tired and it being an overcast day, it felt much later than it was, which messed with us mentally.. however we pushed on and finally reached Nelson Road again, which this time we crossed over and continued on a gravel road signed "Rosemary's Trail" (or Aldworth Road on street maps). This road passed a couple of residences, with a couple of small ups and downs before reaching Childs Bog Dam. It was rather muddy/icy on the final descent to the dam, but we were able to carefully avoid the worst of it. Childs Bog Dam was really pretty, somewhat frozen it created a lovely waterfall effect. Continuing on, we were back on a country road passing a few houses. The trail takes a sharp left onto Seaver Road which shows off an amazing view over to Monadnock and passes Seavers Reservoir and Chesham Pond with land owned by the Harris Center. One final push crossing Chesham Road, the trail takes a turn right back into the woods for a short half mile connector over to Brown Road.

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