Snow is coming! I've been down with a cold this week, so while I wanted to get out, I didn't want to overdo it and also wanted to get out and home before the snow arrives. Sunapee-Ragged-Kearsarge Section 10 it was. My bestie Laura accompanied me again today and bless her with the car spots. We dropped a car at Proctor Academy in the parking area of Farrell Field House per the SRKG website and headed over to Winslow State Park. The gate is closed for the season, so we had to park roadside at the bottom of the access road. There were already a couple cars there. We geared up and started off with an out and back of the access road, which was basically all our elevation gain for the day! It's a paved road, though steep at times, but we were able to make decent time. At the top, we enjoyed the surrounding views for a moment, played a little on the playground and headed back down. Back at the car, we continued on Twist Hill Road which started off paved and then turned to hard packed dirt before transitioning to a true Class VI road. It was fairly eroded in places and had some ice, but we were able to avoid without needing traction. At the intersection with Morey Hill Road, was a cool remnant of an old house with fireplace still standing. The road turned back to hard packed dirt briefly with a very pretty frozen stream alongside the road and then turned right (at the bear) onto Dawes Road. This was probably the most eroded/iciest section of the day which slowed us down a bit, but overall wasn't too bad. At the intersection with Bridge Road, it turned back to hard packed dirt and we were back in a residential area. At the end of Bridge Road is Keniston Covered Bridge and just before that a stack of mailboxes with a snowmobile trail opposite. The SRKG blaze was on the mailboxes and facing in the direction as if you were coming off the snowmobile trail, I had a printed out copy of the map as well as a digital download and all indicated the trail went down the snowmobile trail.. which is where we went. This meandered alongside a river and popped out at the base of the Proctor Ski area, followed a field around to the parking area and then turned left crossing an old bridge, which looked very unstable, but thankfully held up before meeting up with the Northern Rail Trail. We had thought it odd that this section had no SRKG blazes at all, since the rest of this section had been relatively well marked. I wondered if the trail had been rerouted back at the mailboxes up to the covered bridge and along the Northern Rail Trail instead of following the snowmobile trail. Once we reached the NRT crossing we could see that this was in fact the case. We did an out and back of that 0.4 mile section of the NRT to the covered bridge just so I could say I had "hiked the trail". Back where we had started on the NRT the trail turns left and heads through a maintenance area for Proctor Academy before popping out at some athletic fields and crossing Route 4 and back to the car.
Strava Activity
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| Bottom of the access road to Winslow State Park |
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| views from Winslow State Park |
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| looking up at Mt Kearsarge from the parking area |
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| back at Winter parking and onto Twist Hill Rd |
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| cool relics at the intersection with Morey Hill Rd |
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| you never know what you'll see on a hike |
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| right onto Dawes Road |
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| this was a bit icy along here |
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| Keniston Covered Bridge |
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| do no go down this snowmo trail off Bridge Road |
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| instead continue up to the bridge and turn right on the Northern Rail Trail |
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| the Northern Rail Trail at Keniston Covered Bridge |
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| back to Proctor Academy |
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| coming from the school look for this blaze to continue |
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