Wantastiquet-Monadnock Trail - Cheshire Rail Trail

 I had grand plans of tackling something a little more adventurous, but woke with a bad cold.. so played it safe and headed back to Troy to start exploring the Cheshire Rail Trail portion of the Wantastiquet-Monadnock Trail. This section stretches from downtown Keene all the way to Troy. I did 4 miles out and 4 miles back from Troy Depot to the point where Webb Depot Rd goes under the trail. I actually enjoyed it a lot more than I had anticipated. It was basically a flat, straight line which was perfect for me today. Conditions were a mix of bare ground, ice or a sugary thin layer of snow which provided great traction and I was able to bare boot the entire way. The icy sections either had bare ground on the sides or just enough snow to provide good grip. The first mile coming from Troy was residential, and then as the houses were left behind the trail runs alongside the South Branch Ashuelot River for the rest of the stretch that I did. This section of the trail also runs close to Route 12, so river on one side and road on the other.. sometimes close, sometimes a bit further away. Sometimes you are level with it, sometimes way above and even below it at times. This provided enough variety to keep it a little interesting. About 2 miles in I started seeing some ice formations on rock alongside the trail, which was super pretty. Each time I'd think "wow this is great" a bigger and better one would appear.. then somewhere around mile 3 I hit the jackpot. There is a section of the trail that goes through a tunneled out rock and the ice formations here were beautiful! It almost seemed like a hidden gem that no one knew about! The sun shining in was providing wonderful ambience as well, which lifted my spirits just as I was starting to get tired and carried me through the rest of the hike (walk). 

Strava Activity

Metacomet-Monadnock/Wantastiquet-Monadnock Trails Troy Depot to Fern Hill

 This year for some reason, I am just not into Winter hiking. I'm doing all I can to avoid it! In downtown Troy at the Troy Depot, the Metacomet-Monadnock and Wantastiquet Monadnock Trails merge and head over Fern Hill to Gap Mountain and on to their ends at Mt Monadnock. I had come up Fern Hill from the Gap Mountain side, so today I decided to park at the Troy Depot and finish the small section up Fern Hill from the Troy side. Initially I was going to park at the end of Prospect Street and do the road walk down to Troy Depot, but the small area described on the Metacomet-Monadnock guide for a couple of cars had not been plowed. So Plan B was to start at the Troy Depot. There is a train car currently parked at the Depot as well, and there were folks working on it today. I wonder what they're turning it into! It lightly snowed my entire drive over but stopped when I parked. Since this was majority road walking, I just wore my boots, but threw my spikes in just in case the road was icy, or the short section I needed on Fern Hill warranted traction. First I headed up to the Troy Tent Site, one of the few overnight options along the Wantastiquet-Monadnock Trail. From the Depot, head one block over to High Street, turn left and walk about a quarter mile. You will see a green house on the left, then a white house. Immediately after the white house is a small stone wall with a sign indicating the spur to the tent site. I had looked this up on Google Earth previously, otherwise I'd have probably missed it. The spur heads down between 2 houses to an area the landowner has set up for 3 tent sites. They currently have some equipment stored in the area, so I could really only make out 1 of the sites, which was in a fenced area. Very generous of the landowner to allow this. Back on High Street, I walked down to Rt 12. Turned right and walked up to a pedestrian crossing just past Water Street. Crossed here and walked down Rt 12 where thankfully there is a sidewalk the entire length until Quarry Road. Turn left on Quarry Road. The town recycling station is down Quarry Road and being a Saturday when it's open, it was a busier road than I expected. The recycling center is halfway down the road, it got quieter after that. Head up a pretty steep little hill to where pavement ends and it's hard packed dirt. Continue to the end of Quarry Road where Lloyd Lane goes left, and a fork is in front of you. The left branch of the fork is a private drive. The right fork is the trail, a Class VI road. It is marked here with a map. From here to the top of Fern Hill is about 0.3 miles and was completely snow covered with a couple inches, but I was still able to make do with just my boots. I was also completely surprised to see fresh tracks that continued on over Fern Hill. I wonder if it was a Winter thru hiker! I reached the summit of Fern Hill, which was my turnaround point and retraced my steps to the car. 

Strava Activity

Troy Depot

Turn left on High Street for the tent spur

tent spur off High Street

the trail to the tent sites is clearly marked

Rt 12 in downtown Troy

Left on Quarry Road

blazes for both WM and MM trails

where Quarry Road turns Class VI

turn left off Quarry Road near Fern Hill summit

my turnaround point on Fern Hill

train being remodeled at Troy Depot

Metacomet-Monadnock Trail - Little Monadnock Mountain

 It is unseasonably warm in NH at the moment. 50-60 degrees in February. I am loving it. With zero desire to do anything in snow, Laura and I headed as south as we could and did a loop on the Metacomet-Monadnock Trail. We parked at Rhododendron State Park and walked back out to Rhododendron Road. We wore spikes in the parking lot as it was rather icy. We were able to do the 1.4 mile road walk in just our boots as the sun had melted just about all the ice, and what was left in shadier areas we could carefully avoid. This was a rolling section of small ups and downs, but being on a road, we made good time. We turned right onto Old Troy Road and as we reached the start of the Class VI section we saw signs saying No Trespassing. We wondered if that meant no walking either, but thankfully moments later the homeowner of the last house drove down her driveway and informed us that we were free to continue. She did warn us of some wet sections and we wondered what may lie ahead. The road became more snow covered here, so we opted to put on our spikes for a little more traction. We would keep them on the rest of the way. It is half a mile up Old Troy Road to the Widow Gage Forest Red Trail. We definitely saw the area the homeowner had warned us about as it was very, very muddy with some standing water. Luckily for us, the mud was completely frozen so it didn't give us any problems. We turned left on Red Trail and made a short, steady little climb up and over a knob. Ground cover now, and for the remainder of the hike was a mix of mashed potatoes and leafy bare ground. Hiking in mashed potatoes is exhausting, but I'll take that over breaking trail in knee deep snow. Amazingly, all the trails we hiked today had been broken out since the last snowfall. Although well marked, it did make it easier to just follow the footprints! Roughly half a mile from Old Troy Road, Red Trail meets up with the Metacomet-Monadnock Trail. We turned left and finished the quarter mile that I was too tired to complete a couple weeks ago. We crossed a pretty little brook and turned around at the clearing at Morgan Road. Backtracking, this time we continued straight past the Red Trail intersection and continued back to Old Troy Road. The trail here is both the MM trail and Red Trail, so you'll see both blazes. Turning right back onto Old Troy Road, we were actually glad for the thin snow/ice cover as the road seemed very rough and rocky underneath, but we were able to sail right over. About a tenth of a mile down, at the double blazed tree, turn left back into the woods on Metacomet-Monadnock Trail. Continue for a couple tenths before leaving the Widow Gage Forest and a connector path to Blue Trail and the parking lot for this trail network. Here also marks the end of Metacomet-Monadnock Trail section 3 and starts section 4. For the next mile, the trail climbs steadily up the slopes of Little Monadnock Mountain. I had read in the trail guide that it was steep in sections, which had me nervous.. but what we had been expecting in terms of steep being scrambly and rocky was not in fact the case.. it was great footing the whole way, just a good steady ascent. No views or anything scenic along this section, just a feeling of being far away from anything in the woods. It was a really serene area. We did encounter one gentleman descending as we were ascending and during our brief conversation he told us he has climbed Mt Monadnock 1918 times! Woah! We reached the summit of Little Monadnock and continued over a couple tenths to the intersection with Little Monadnock Trail which connects back to the parking area for Rhododendron State Park. We also saw the only other people of the day at this point enjoying the views over towards Mt Monadnock. This also marked the end of section 4 on the MM Trail and the start of section 5, which I will come back and hike at another time. From here it is about a mile and half to the parking lot and the first half mile is quite steep. The guide describes it as unmaintained and eroded. I had been here a few years ago with Cameron in Summer and did remember some scrambly steep sections so was a bit nervous about descending with the snow/ice. While definitely steep, it wasn't near as bad as I had anticipated. The icy sections could be avoided and with spikes and taking it slow we were able to get down without any trouble. We were really tired at this point, and this section seemed to take forever. We were so happy to see the rhododendrons because that meant we were almost done. I hadn't thought the leaves would hold during Winter on the trees, but they did and the tunnels I remembered were still in tact, which in contrast to the white snow was really beautiful! 

Strava Activity

Laura in the parking lot

start of road walk on Rhododendron Road

pond along Old Troy Road

Turning onto Red Trail in Widow Gage Forest

you can hardly see it, but a pole was sticking out of the tree!

turning onto Metacomet-Monadnock Trail

turnaround point at Morgan Road

heading back the way we came from Morgan Road

Red Trail and MM merge for a quarter mile or so

Right onto Old Troy Road

Left off Old Troy Road onto MM Trail

End of Section 3

Continuing on Section 4

ridge walking on Little Monadnock

intersection with Little Monadnock Trail

heading down the steep section on Little Monadnock Trail

re-entering the rhododendrons!