Post by percy peaks on Oct 21, 2010 14:01:57 GMT -5
Closed most of the summer due to being shut down by a landowner, the Owls Head Trail in Jefferson has now be rerouted in its lower section and has been reopened, thanks to the work of the Randolph Mountain Club and its volunteers, Pondicherry Wildlife Refuge manager David Govatski, and Cohos Trail board member Ray Chaput.
The trail head remains the original White Mountain National Forest parking area and the trail exits the parking lot in the same place. But soon the trail cuts off the old route to the right, swings to higher ground and in about 900 feet reaches the original trail at the MNNF boundary. The route is now shorter and is drier than the former pathway, both pluses.
Now that the Owls Head Trail is reopened, the Cohos Trail Assocaition will turn its attention to redeveloping the closed Slide Brook Trail across the highway. Closed for four or five years because beaver activity severely flooded the old route and made it impossible to reroute it farther to the east, a new pathway has been laid out that would take the trail across the dam fronting an old beaver bog. It is hoped that the Slide Brook Trail reincarnation will be able to be opened by mid-summer so that there is a seemless transistion from the WMNF property through to the Pondicherry Wildlife Refuge. That would eliminate quite a bit of road walking on Route 115 and 115A.
Percy Peaks
The trail head remains the original White Mountain National Forest parking area and the trail exits the parking lot in the same place. But soon the trail cuts off the old route to the right, swings to higher ground and in about 900 feet reaches the original trail at the MNNF boundary. The route is now shorter and is drier than the former pathway, both pluses.
Now that the Owls Head Trail is reopened, the Cohos Trail Assocaition will turn its attention to redeveloping the closed Slide Brook Trail across the highway. Closed for four or five years because beaver activity severely flooded the old route and made it impossible to reroute it farther to the east, a new pathway has been laid out that would take the trail across the dam fronting an old beaver bog. It is hoped that the Slide Brook Trail reincarnation will be able to be opened by mid-summer so that there is a seemless transistion from the WMNF property through to the Pondicherry Wildlife Refuge. That would eliminate quite a bit of road walking on Route 115 and 115A.
Percy Peaks