Out And About In NH During The New Coronavirus: Where Social Distancing Is Easy

From InDepth NH:

By Paula Tracy, InDepthNH.org | April 1, 2020

Welcome to Out and About, Paula Tracy’s new column to help you find those less well-know spots to get a breath of fresh air.

I won’t be going to Tuckerman Ravine this spring to ski Hillman Highway as I love to do. Thanks to COVID-19, the skis are put away in the barn until next season. Just after it closed the area between Lunch Rocks and the lip of the headwall, the U.S. Forest Service and Mount Washington Avalanche Center closed up shop on Monday and issued its last report explaining the need to reduce activity and exposure of workers to COVID-19 to comply with the governor’s social distancing order.

Gov. Chris Sununu’s emergency order tells the public to stay home except to work in essential fields like police, fire and health-care jobs and defines essential businesses and activities with a number of exceptions. Among the allowed activities are “leaving home for outdoor recreation” or “to get fresh air and exercise” provided that appropriate social distancing protocols are observed.

That wasn’t happening this past weekend in the area of Pinkham Notch, according to the ranger’s final report.

“The travel and social congregation that have continued to occur in Tuckerman Ravine, nearby trails, and parking areas suggest that more aggressive measures are needed in order to comply with state and federal guidelines intended to reduce the spread and impact of coronavirus. The (United States Forest Service) and (Mount Washington Avalanche Center) understand and support the need for outdoor recreation, fresh air and exercise but interpret the measures to limit the spread should exclude riskier activities, particularly at a highly popular venue which attracts visitors from around the region. Furthermore, high-risk activities such as skiing and climbing in complex avalanche terrain with extreme weather conditions create an unnecessary risk of injury or a need for search and rescue intervention. These injuries could lead to rescues and the opportunity to further spread the virus through close contact.”

You assume this increased risk if you go, and will have no avalanche report to fall back on, it said.

“We will continue to support local rescue teams with spot forecasts on request.”

I will not be going.

I won’t be lacing up my hiking boots, either, to go up Mount Major in Alton for an Earth Day clean-up as I had hoped. The place has been mobbed since the virus started to spread through community transmission in this region.

I will also be avoiding other popular hiking spots in my neighborhood like Rattlesnake in Holderness or even the trails at Chamberlain-Reynolds Forest which access the shores of Squam Lake, popular with the dogs and their owners.

If there are more than three cars in any parking lot, that is a crowd for me right now. I am seriously social distancing to protect everyone from this horrible pandemic.

Social distancing is not just six feet in front of you or six feet behind you, but six feet side to side. On a narrow hiking trail like Mount Major, passing folks on the trails puts you and the people you love at risk.

You can carry the novel coronavirus in your system, without showing symptoms from three to as many as 14 days, said Maureen Criasia, a registered nurse, Center Harbor conservation commissioner and a volunteer with the Lakes Region Conservation Trust.

She sent me an email expressing concern that some people are not social distancing right now, though they think they are, in the most popular places like waterfalls and well-known hikes with grand views.

But she suggested I look at Lakes Region Conservation Trust properties as a way to get outside in this part of the state. I am finding new and lesser-known places to explore within a five-mile radius of my house which allows me the exercise and outdoor access I need to stay sane right now. I do not want to stress the medical profession right now by breaking my ankle while peak-bagging. It’s just not the time to push it.

New Hampshire Fish and Game had two searches and a rescue to report from the weekend of hikers who either got hurt or lost on popular trails, including Monadnock where they reported 90 percent of the license plates were from out of state.

I think for many the problem is, they don’t know where to go where it’s not crowded. So I am going to work on that. I am going to follow the little blazes on trees on trails nearby and get to know the local woodlands.

This is the first of a weekly outdoor column “Out and About” on New Hampshire’s Outdoors, replacing the winter skiing column, “A Winter Run.”

It will also include photos, videos, maybe some maps, links and advice on places to explore in or near your own backyard.

A great resource I have found on trails and social distancing on the trails is at Trailfinder. It has particularly good advice at https://www.trailfinder.info/trails-and-covid-19.

Another resource is your town’s website. This is where I found information on the Lakes Region Conservation Trust and its properties near my home in Center Harbor.

Homestead Forest Conservation Area

This weekend, I explored for the first time the Homestead Forest Conservation Area, only 1.2 miles from my house. It’s on the Ashland/Center Harbor town line, down Lambert Road and has wonderful views of Lake Winona if you hike the short but steep Winona Ridge Trail (follow the yellow blazes from the kiosk area). That trail is part of a collection of well-maintained conservation tracts managed or owned by the Lakes Region Conservation Trust. While its office in Center Harbor is closed now due to COVID-19, you can go to the website at lrct.org to download maps and descriptions, buy a pocket guide from their online store or call 603-253-3301. When I moved to this area of the state in 2013, I bought one of those guidebooks and had a goal of visiting all its properties. Then, I got busy with other things. Now, I am not busy.

I might just be able to do a bit more toward that goal in the coming weeks by exploring more of their trails.

According to its website, since its founding in 1979, the LRCT has conserved more than 150 properties totaling more than 27,000 acres of land in the region with over 92 miles of trails in 23 communities.

Among the most notable and popular of their properties are the Castle in the Clouds Conservation Area in the Ossipee Mountains; Stonedam, Five Mile, Ragged, and Blanchard Islands in Lake Winnipesaukee and the Red Hill Conservation Area overlooking Lake Winnipesaukee and Squam Lake. Some lesser-known but wonderful properties to explore can be found here: https://lrct.org/explorelearn/places-to-visit/

Many of the conserved tracts have been donated and are worth millions of dollars, but they have immeasurably improved the already attractive Lakes Region as a place to live, work and play.

The watershed benefits from conservation of these properties include water that drains into Lakes Winnipesaukee, Squam, Winnisquam, Newfound, Ossipee, and Lake Wentworth. The organization has also conserved 35 miles of lake frontage on Lakes Winnipesaukee, Squam, Newfound, Bearcamp Pond, White Oak Pond, Knights Pond, Bearcamp River, Cockermouth River, and other water bodies, rivers, and streams throughout the region and has in its collection 28 summits conserved from Red Hill, Mt. Shaw, Faraway Mtn., Mt. Roberts, Mt. Webster, Mt. Livermore, Copple Crown Mtn., and Sugarloaf.

Fogg Hill

Another lesser-known LRCT property, off Piper Hill Road in Center Harbor, is the Fogg Hill Conservation Area, with a new parking lot and kiosk explaining the property, its history, and the trail system. This hike does not have any views from the summit but it is a lovely mile-long walk in the woods, past an old kettle hole bog and near its parking lot, a short dead-end trail along the edge of a pond and a moderate-to-easy hike.

Like most other LRCT properties, dogs are allowed but remember it is tick season for both you and your pets and it is best to have a leash as well. Fogg Hill was recently acquired by the LRCT and like Homestead, there are remnants of its agrarian past. Old farmhouse cellar holes, miles of stone walls, with signs in snow and mud of bear, moose, deer, beaver, and coyote.

There are lovely wildflowers, budding trees, and mushrooms to learn about. And the birds are returning, thankfully. Spring is just beginning around this part of the state and this is the time of year I love to search for Trailing Arbutus, commonly known as the mayflower.

The mayflowers are not in bloom here yet, but if you take some buds home, put them in the water near a window you can force them to open early as you might with sprigs of forsythia. The scent from light pink mayflowers is probably among my favorite in this world.

Mayflower by Paula Tracy

My mother recalled Native American children coming to her door in Canada to sell bouquets to her mother. She called them “nosegays,” with the leaves removed from all but the outside of the bouquet, leaving a pale pink cluster of flowers in the center. It is a rite of spring in the woodlands and roadsides of Northern New England and they are out there for you to find now.

On the trails at Homestead, we found some of the leafy greens but tight buds among the leaf litter. We crossed a mountain brook and walked through past an old pasture, past a homestead foundation with its hand-cut granite and leftover metal in the forest. I thought of how it must have looked 100 years ago. Likely a sheep farm in the 1850s surrounded by open hillsides of fields full of livestock.

A mix of early succession pines and hardwood have dotted what once was pasture. It must have been a hardscrabble garden situation with the soil not the best and bedrock at every turn. Maple trees and old apple trees could be found in the forest, likely tapped and picked for their syrup and fruit.

There are stone walls for miles on this property, which is about 1,200 acres along what was once a section of Lambert Road. Lambert once connected with a crossroad connecting it to Coxboro Road in Holderness and Leavitt Hill Road in Ashland.

We first checked it out from Google maps and then went to check it out ourselves with the dog. We chose the Winona Ridge Trail up a steep ledge area with a climbing rope anchored to help people up and down the rock face. Fortunately, it was not wet and there was very little snow in the woods. But there were ticks the size of a pin-head and we found some on the dog. The climb is steep but for less than a mile until it comes to a view of Lake Winona and the surrounding hills to the south.

Tom Cowie holds the line on Winona Ridge Trail. Paula Tracy photo

We did not see a single person the entire time although there were two other cars parked at the trailhead. This was Saturday afternoon. A nice, spring Saturday afternoon in the midst of COVID-19! Not the scene at Mount Major last weekend to be sure.

Another terrific hike within a few miles of the house, and with likely no traffic, is Sky Pond in New Hampton. There is a Fish and Game parking lot there on the road off Lower Oxbow Road. Hike up the old class five road and turn left to a path out to the ledges overlooking Lake Winona with one ledge facing toward Lake Winnipesaukee.

Next Week

Next week, we turn off the trails, wait for dusk and listen to spring peepers, check out vernal pools and learn about THE BIG NIGHT! If you don’t know what THE BIG NIGHT is, ask someone who lives in Keene, or just come back here for another read.

Send your outdoor story ideas to paulatracy6@gmail.com and stay well!

Paula Tracy’s first big hike was in 1975 with classmates from Concord up Mount Lafayette with teacher and outdoor enthusiast Ned Bergman. She was 13 and was immediately captured by the wonders of New Hampshire’s great outdoors. It would lead to a lifetime love of exploring the woods, water, and wildlife in the Granite State. As a staff reporter, for 25 years at the NH Union Leader and then for WMUR.com, she has written about the subject extensively and continues here with the hope of connecting New Hampshire’s residents with their own backyard.

This story was originally published by InDepth NH.