Moose Mountain Reservation 5/24/11

"Wildflowers, Mud, Ruts and Ticks" (pictures)
(Moose Mountains Facebook Group)

Difficulty: Easy

Directions: From downtown Farmington, NH take Rt. 153 North into Middleton about 5 miles. Continue onto King's Highway for .9 miles. Turn right at the police station onto Ridge Road. At 1.6 miles turn left onto New Portsmouth Road. Bear left onto New Portsmouth Road Exd. The trail head and kiosk will be seen ahead. You can park at the kiosk or continue 400 feet on an unmaintained road to an upper parking area just past the river.

Report: Recently completing our Land Steward training with the SPNHF I thought we would check on the Moose Mountains Reservation property when Scott got home from work Tuesday. A quick 15 minute drive and we pulled into the parking lot. Someone had put the gate back in place but is still in need of a lock. Wildflowers were out in full force as we walked the road. Black flies were a little bothersome but not all that bad. As we walked the road signs of ATV use was evident worse than when we were here exactly a month ago. Muddy ruts were numerous. As we reached the Cemetery section that passes through private property we noticed the cable had been re-attached and locked across the bridge. Again ATV users had dug up the road along the cemetery and up the field entering the Burrows Farm area.

Once up at the Burrows Farm fields of wild strawberry and grasses were torn up by mud tire tread. It was rather upsetting to see so much disregard to this scenic, historic area. We walked up to what we determined to be the home site and found a boulder with a plaque on it. The apple trees were in bloom and it was such a nice spot. Someone had done target practice on the farm site itself filling some old tin pales up with bullet holes. The over shots had nicked the pine tree that marks one of the corners to the Burrows 1800's cemetery. This got me on a vendetta to do everything in my power to stop the illegal use of this property. To add to all this dismay ticks were racing up our clothing and backs quicker than anything I've ever seen!

Past the field we made our way through muddy ruts and up the RV trail. I rolled a large rock into the large pool of water here for easier crossing and to discourage ATV use across it. We continued to the junction below Phoebes Nable Mt. From here we headed back down the main trail where we erected an old gate across the road that had been thrown in the woods. More ticks and black flies we headed back out and to the truck. We have a lot of work on our hands here. Once we can stop the ATV use on this reservation, trails need to be repaired, foot bridges built, blazing needed and culverts cleaned out! All told Scott had 12 ticks on him in just an hour of hiking and I had 6 on me. YUCK!

Moose Mountain Reservation & Phoebes Nable Mt. 4/24/11

"An Introduction to Moose Mountain Reservation" (pictures)

Difficulty: Easy - Moderate (steep/loose/rocky up Phoebes Nable Mt.)

Directions: From downtown Farmington, NH take Rt. 153 North into Middleton about 5 miles. Continue onto King's Highway for .9 miles. Turn right at the police station onto Ridge Road. At 1.6 miles turn left onto New Portsmouth Road. Bear left onto New Portsmouth Road Exd. The trail head and kiosk will be seen ahead. You can park at the kiosk or continue 400 feet on an unmaintained road to an upper parking area just past the river.

Report: Scott and I are set to go on Land Steward training with the NH Forest Society in May. We had chosen Moose Mountains as the area we would be responsible for. We wanted to get somewhat acquainted with this vast 2, 325 acre area before our class but had no idea as to any trail head whereabouts. Scott did some online searches during the week and found all the information we needed including a basic MAP. And so we planned our visit to the Moose Mountain Reservation for the weekend.

Unfortunately the weather called for rain showers on Saturday and Sunday was not looking the greatest. Saturday Mother Nature figured she hadn't had enough of tormenting us and threw snow showers at us accumulating to an inch! So as we got our weekend work done today we hoped for a half decent day Easter Sunday. The morning rolled around and the sun was shining and it was already warm outside! This had us excited and awake, ready to take advantage of the nice weather! Since we had no concrete knowledge of what to expect we simply planned on checking out the kiosk at the end of New Portsmouth Road and check out some of the woods roads and the old Burrows Farm site.

We found the kiosk no problem and parked here. At 8:45am we headed down the road which wasn't gated at the time following ATV tracks. Black flies were already buzzing but not yet swarming or biting. We soon came to a river and found a truck in an upper parking area. We continued on uphill past another road on the left which crosses the river again. Past this a little ways the road bears left. A trail leaves right here on North Trail. Continuing on the road you climb to a field and the Burrows cemetery under some pine trees. Just a handful of stones, with age-at-death sadly averaging in the 40's. ATV or 4x4 tracks were all through the field along with beer cans which were also along the roads. Another sad reminder that not everyone respects the land they are out enjoying.

Continuing uphill on the road you pass a trail visible at the tree line which we passed by and up to the next road junction. Here we passed a pair of hikers with a dog. They looked shocked to see us other hikers here and we said our quick hello's. Keeping straight and bearing left at this junction you pass the Burrow's Farm site on the left, now a birch and blueberry glade. We followed the road until it began do descend, then we decided to turn back and head back to the previous road junction to climb Phoebes Nable Mountain.

Climbing got steep and ruff in spots. The wet conditions from melting snow making the climb up slippery rock a little more difficult. Soon at 10:00am we reached the ledgy summit, overgrown and not revealing too much of a view. But a nice spot just the same! Notable mountains in view through the trees were Blue Job and Hussey Mts. in Farmington and Prospect Mt. in Alton, all with radio towers barely visible.

We descended back down to the field and cemetery and headed down another road past the larger Stevens Cemetery visible from the Burrows Cemetery. This road then connects back to the main road we began on. We called it a day here and decided to look for other trail heads around the area. We got back to the truck at 10:45am or so and headed out.