My family is vacationing on Cape Cod this week. The weather has been meh, so I took advantage of a non-rainy, yet non-beach day and explored Nickerson State Park in Brewster. I actually walked to the park from the house we rent to save paying $30 out of state parking within the park itself. Only added a mile, works for me! Nickerson has 3 official hiking trails and many, many bike trails, so having a map is handy as trails come in and out from all over the place. There are several campsite areas within the park also, so add in more trails to and from those. It wasn't confusing with a map, but I imagine it might be without. Once in the park, I headed down a paved bike trail so as not to be walking on the main road. I turned left onto Flax Pond Road and walked a short distance to Area 5 camping, where there is access to the Flax Pond hiking trail. It was an overcast and dreary day, but very humid. The camping areas seemed bustling, there were several people out on the ponds enjoying water activities and I passed quite a lot on the trails as well, but not overwhelmingly so. It was fun hiking on a more sandy trail, which after several days rain were well packed down and not too soft. While mostly flat in comparison to mountain hiking, it was a consistent day of rolling ups and downs with little elevation. Just enough to keep it interesting. I reached an intersecting trail joining Flax Pond to Cliff Pond and headed that way. Cliff Pond is the largest of the 3 ponds with official hiking trails around them. All were very pretty and thankfully it wasn't too buggy either. I passed a few boat rental areas and saw a few people fishing. I reached the parking area at the end of Flax Pond Road and jumped over to Little Cliff Pond. Doing an almost full circumnavigation of that, I reached back to Cliff Pond. Closed that loop and then headed back over to Flax Pond to finish that also. A really fun area to explore. I imagine if the weather was nicer, it would be much busier, but I liked the quietness today. The bike trails, particularly the Cape Cod Rail Trail when I crossed that, seemed very busy. One thinks of the beach when vacationing on the Cape, but there are lots of other activities to enjoy as well.

First sighting of Flax Pond

Flax Pond Trail blazed in red

Onto yellow blazed Cliff Pond Trail

Cliff Pond

so many little side ponds filled with lilies all over

this is a private youth camp area that the trail passes through

Blue blazed Little Cliff Pond Trail

Little Cliff Pond

a more remote area of the trail at the bottom of Little Cliff Pond

The trail went right across the beach

can only imagine how busy this is on a nicer day

Monday, July 5, 2021

Beauty Ledge & Piper Mountain - Moose Mountains Reservation

Many people ask me what "redlining" is. In terms of New Hampshire hiking, it involves hiking every trail in the AMC Guide Books. I'm working on the AMC South Guide Book. The book is broken into sections (regions) and today I reached 100% on the Lakes Region tab (or at least my version of it for the 5th Edition). I'm a little disappointed in myself that I saved this hike for last, as it wasn't my favourite, but that's OK. Looking back, it wasn't as bad as I felt actually in the moment. I headed back to the Moose Mountains Reservation in Middleton for the final 4 trails I needed on the Lakes Region tab. They are definitely far less traveled than many trails in the area, but all were easy enough to navigate, even if a little messy in places. I started on Burrows Farm Trail, which I've done before. Today the deer flies and bugs were pretty bad. I ended up wearing a bug net as I couldn't stand them flying around my face. Today I took the right hand turn onto North Trail, which is an old logging road. I continued up to Beauty Ledge Trail, which is marked with a sign. Beauty Ledge Trail is a short steep climb up to some ledges looking over Strafford County and into southern Maine. I continued onto Beauty Knob Trail which was a short, steep descent to meet up with the top end of North Trail. According to maps, North Trail continues and another trail sometimes called Mountain View Trail also departs from this area, but I'd say they are very scarcely traveled and although I did see some flagging tape on what appeared to be Mountain View Trail, these appear to be no longer maintained. Even where Beauty Knob Trail emerged onto North Trail, had I been coming from the opposite direction, I'm not sure I would have found it. There is a very old faded blue blaze on the tree, but that's pretty much it for any indication there is a trail there. The trail itself is well marked, it would just be locating the start from North Trail that could be tricky. North Trail is pretty messy. Being an old logging road, it was grassy in some areas, rocky in others and several small blowdowns all over the place. Back down near the bottom is a large cleared area with an intersection for Piper Mountain Trail. This was my last trail for the Lakes Region tab. Another old logging road, it descends moderately and is much like North Trail. Grassy, rocky and rather messy. With all the bugs out today, it really wasn't my cup of tea, but I persisted not wanting to have to come back another day to finish. The trail reaches Bowser Pond and takes a sharp left, following the perimeter of the pond for a ways before heading up towards Piper Mountain. You're basically on old logging road/snowmobile corridor for the remainder of this hike. So not really maintained for Summer hiking, though still passable. The trail climbs until it meets with Piper Mountain Road as marked on the map, which was a rough Class VI road, that really only dirt bikes or ATVs could pass on. I have read about some folks who have driven, but I'd say they came in from the opposite direction, as nearer the path to Piper Mountain summit, the road did widen and smooth some, but was still quite rough. I wouldn't recommend trying to drive unless you had an off road vehicle. There is no indication where the side path to the summit and view ledges are, but I was following an online tracker which led me in the right direction. If you were just doing it on paper, the trail is open and obvious, just not marked. If you were looking for it, you should be able to see it easily enough. This section was a little muddy and there was indication a dirt bike or something had been through here recently. The trail goes up and over the unmarked summit before descending to some ledges that overlook Bowser Pond and the surrounding area. There is an old firepit and there were several signs of social gatherings (ie beer cans left laying around). The view is pretty, but not really a hike I'd readily recommend to anyone unless redlining. I wasn't looking forward to the hike back and considered trying to navigate an older unmaintained trail, but decided against it. I actually made decent time back and it was then I realized the old logging roads weren't as bad as I felt on the way out. I'm glad I did the hike and I'm psyched to have reached 100% for the Lakes Region. Onto the remaining 7 sections!

Strava Activity

upper ledges at Beauty Ledge.. keep going though

views from the lower ledges at Beauty Ledge

looking back at where Beauty Knob Trail came out on North Trail

Piper Mountain

looking over Bowser Pond from Piper Mountain

looking back at Phoebes Nable & Moose Mountain

and that's a wrap on the Lakes Region tab of the AMC South Trail Guide

Bowser Pond

trail carnage

Sunday, July 4, 2021

Pitcher Mountain, Hubbard Hill, Jackson Hill via MSG

July 4th! The rains stopped, but it was still very wet. I headed back to the Monadnock-Sunapee Greenway to log some more miles. I started at Pitcher Mountain. It's a short, moderate climb from the parking lot to the firetower. Having been here twice before, I didn't go up the tower today, but continued on the Greenway towards Hubbard Hill. I'd read that the stretch between Pitcher and Jackson Hill was some of the more interesting trail on the Monadnock-Sunapee Greenway, so I was eager to see what it was all about. The trail was more grown in than I had anticipated and with the rains the past few days, I was instantly soaked. Ironically, hiking actually in the rain all day yesterday, my feet stayed mostly dry. Today they were wet within minutes. Thankfully it wasn't cold, so my wet clothing wasn't a hindrance. This annoyed me a little bit, but I pushed on. Soon I was in the woods on a more traditional trail. Overall, the trail stayed wet for most of the day, there was a lot of standing water and mud, but I was able to avoid most of it. Just had to be careful as the roots and rocks were rather slippery. The trail meanders through the woods for a while, crossing a gravel road and continuing into the woods before actually joining the road and following it for a while. I believe this is a snowmobile corridor in the Winter, but this section is mostly gravel with good footing. I was grateful to have an online map tracker on me as in several places, snowmobile corridors branched off, although the MSG is pretty well blazed with white blazes for the most part. This section of snowmobile trail petered out at a cleared section and the trail continued through a grassy area, which actually kind of reminded me of a beach as there were no trees in the immediate vicinity! The variety of terrain was definitely fun to navigate through. I passed the halfway marker for the MSG, 24 miles to Sunapee and 24 miles to Monadnock! Hubbard Hill was the next summit, which was an open hilltop with some restricted views of the surrounding area. The clouds were low today, so no great vistas. Continuing on, the trail re-entered the woods and descended quite a bit towards Fox Brook. This was the most rugged area of the trail, and the wettest, so I had to take extra care with footing to prevent slipping. I took the short spur to the Fox Brook Campsite, which is a tent platform for thru hikers of the MSG. As I came back down the spur, I encountered the first person of the day. A southbound thru hiker who was in the middle of a 24 mile day. Not the best weekend for a multi-day hike, but we can't pick the weather when planning in advance for an adventure like that unfortunately. We exchanged pleasantries and went off in opposite directions. I had 2 small water crossings after that, in which the water was flowing decently, but the crossing was relatively narrow. Having wet feet already, I just went across really only taking care not to fall. The trail merged again with an old road and moderately started climbing up Jackson Hill. The trail here was wide and the footing was good, just a little steeper. The summit of Jackson Hill was wide open and grassy with some pretty wildflowers. A little more view than Hubbard Hill, but still with low clouds I didn't have a lot to see today. I had a quick snack and headed down the short section to meet up with one of those snowmobile offshoots I had passed earlier. I had decided to take this all the way back to the parking area, rather than backtrack my steps. This would provide a quicker and more straightforward route. These roads do tend to get rather boring after a while, but also allow you to increase the pace. I met a large group heading up Jackson Hill from the other side. Then I re-encountered Mr Thru Hiker as he was coming off Hubbard Hill at the fork where the snowmobile corridor I was coming down merged with the trail for a bit. The remainder of the hike was uneventful and I was back at the car in no time.

Strava Activity