You Are Here: SRKG - Section 4

My day started with receiving the wrong breakfast order from my trusty drive thru pre-hike breakfast establishment.. then when I got to my intended parking for my hike, I found it wasn't plowed.. after a momentary hesitation that maybe it wasn't in the cards for today, I checked out the other end of my intended hike and surprisingly found that parking area was plowed. My plan had been to do an out and back on Section 4 of the Sunapee-Ragged-Kearsarge Greenway. That would be roughly 8 miles. Temperatures were arctic today with wind chills sub zero.. but I've hiked in those conditions before. It's all about layering appropriately. What I hadn't factored (because I hadn't seen it in the forecast) was snow. When I arrived at Plan B parking on Route 114 in Springfield it was very lightly flurrying. I had seen on an interactive snowmobile map that this entire section is a snowmobile corridor and currently had "Limited Availability".. I hoped that meant it had been traveled and was packed down. When I started out, I was pleasantly surprised to find, not only was it packed down.. it was groomed! I decided to bareboot, with my spikes packed. There were only a few inches on the ground at this point, so I wouldn't be doing too much damage by not wearing snowshoes. Amazingly, I floated across much of the trail from the groomer. There were definitely a few chunky sections, but those were very brief. This section of the SRKG in this direction starts on Class VI Mcalvin Road and is signed Protectworth Trail, like at the other end on Deer Hill Road. The trail descends very slightly at first, then gently ascends for roughly 1.3 miles before ending at Nichols Hill Road, another Class VI road. Towards the approach for Nichols Hill Road, the snow thinned out on the ground and turning right onto Nichols Hill Road was basically frozen dirt. The trail then turned into rock, which surprised me, but the reason became apparent as it opened up to a field on one side, and a logging operation on the other. The snow was starting to fall more now in earnest and in the area of the logging operation, the wind was more evident. Looked like there may have been views of the surrounding hills here, but it was fairly white out, so I couldn't see much. The trail had climbed up and over a small hill before descending again and meeting an intersection that was blocked off straight ahead. The ground had become snow covered/groomed again as the logging operation was now behind us. The trail here turns left onto Mcgann Road (Class VI) and descended, then ascended up quite a moderate little climb towards Deer Hill Road. At roughly 2.5 miles from the car, I was starting to feel the fatigue of my first Winter hike. Even though I was bare booting, walking in snow is tiring.. along with the snow falling and the cold temps and a recent tragedy in the White Mountains, I was not about to push my limits so made the decision to turn around. I screenshot where I was on the map, so I could come back another day and do an out and back from Deer Hill Road to this same point. From here, I just retraced my steps back to the car. The trail was sparsely blazed, definitely at the turns which was crucial and a couple others along the way. Surprisingly, I saw no snowmobiles today! Just me, myself and some beautiful woods walking.

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