You Are Here: Sunapee Ragged Kearsarge Greenway

Still working on lower elevation hikes while the weather is questionable, I decided to head a little further north this weekend before some incoming snow was to hit and grab Section 12 of the Sunapee Ragged Kearsarge Greenway. I parked at the Lincoln Trail head for Mt Kearsarge and was 2nd car in on this somewhat gloomy Sunday morning. I geared up and instead of heading up towards Mt Kearsarge, I crossed Kearsarge Valley Road and headed about 20 yards down the road to head into the woods on the Kearsarge Valley Trail. Section 12 is roughly 4 miles long and incorporates both trail and road sections. The first mile was in the woods and was logged last year. The SRKG trail maintainers have done an exceptional job of marking this entire section and create a path through the logging slash as best they could, but it was still rather messy. The trail was also quite wet in places after some recent rains. About 3/4 of the way through this section, the trail started following the logging truck access road which was just slightly better, then improved as it passed by the logged area for the last quarter mile or so. The trail popped out on Shaker St, turned left and followed the road a couple hundred yards before turning right onto North Road. The trail continued along North Road under I-89, crossed over North Road and continued on Gile Pond Road before turning right onto Gile Road. A couple tenths down Gile Road, the trail returns to the woods in the Shadow Hill State Forest. This section was very pleasant meandering down towards Gile Pond before turning away from the pond, crossing back over Gile Pond Road and heading back into the woods on the other side. Here the trail climbed gently up to a field opposite Kearsarge Regional Middle School skirted the edge of the field, then re-entered the woods. I wondered if this area was also used by the cross country team for the school as I saw some bright orange blazes marked on trees and rocks. The trail crossed the access road for the school, re-entered the woods and meandered down to Rt 114. Crossing Rt 114, the trail headed back into the woods and here is where things started getting a little messier. Mud became the name of the game. The trail climbed gently up to Wadleigh Road, followed Wadleigh Road, which was dirt and headed back into the woods. The next mile skirted alongside some wetlands and was really wet and muddy. I kept thinking it was shoe sucking, soul crushing mud. I wasn't upset to see the end of that section when it popped out on Wadleigh Hill Road. There was a nice view looking back towards Mt Kearsarge at this point, but today it was mostly hidden in low cloud. I passed a road closed sign, which was for vehicles due to mud and continued down to the entrance of Wadleigh State Park. The next half mile or so was delightful and I was relishing this change after all the mud. Then right at the very end, with less than a tenth of a mile left the trail became all ice. I gently walked over the ice breaking through being careful not to fall, and then it turned to shin deep water covered in a thin layer of ice. This was the straw that broke the camels back for me. Once I reached the end of Section 12 at Penacook Road, I looked at my maps and saw I could easily road walk back to my starting point avoiding retracing steps in all that mud. So I did just that and called Section 12 complete!

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