Through the efforts of dedicated volunteers, the city of Concord is linking isolated systems of trails into a broad network that invites hikers, mountain bikers and skiers to get lost for hours within the limits of the capital city.
Last fall, the group led by Rob Knight established a 6-mile loop in the area of Penacook Lake – between Swope Park, Carter Hill Orchard and the West End Farm trail – on public land and with permissions acquired from private property owners.
Now, that loop is expanding to 13 miles. It’ll allow ambitious hikers to park their cars on Silk Farm Road (south of Interstate 93) and travel up through St. Paul’s School and Winant Park to Carter Hill. Then, they can come back down through Dimond Hill Farm (almost at the Hopkinton border) and return to their parking spots, mostly staying on rural-feeling trails the whole way.
That opportunity – and the nearly 70 miles total of trails within the state’s third most populous city and capital – displays the dedication and good planning efforts of the people in Concord, said Senior Planner Beth Fenstermacher.
“I think Concord is going to have the best hiking of any state capital,” said volunteer Chris Hallowell while working on the new connector Friday.
“I was going to say the best city in New Hampshire,” Knight added.
Either way, it’s a distinction that the volunteers are proud of and hope to continue to expand.
Knight said he recently acquired permissions from three private property owners and St. Paul’s School to incorporate their land or trails into the growing system. Compared with the fun of building trails, he said, getting property owners to agree can be the hard part.
“The city can’t go and invite people to use a trail on private property or put it on their website, but the private landowners – including St. Paul’s School – have been very kind in donating trail easements,” he said.
With that done, a group of volunteers has gotten to work building connections between existing trail systems. On Friday, they were in the woods across from the Swope Park parking area on Long Pond Road.
That’s near where Hansi Glahn lives. She was one of the property owners who Knight approached when he was envisioning how the route might work.
She said she didn’t hesitate at all when she thought about opening up the trails that she and her neighbors built to connect into the system at St. Paul’s.
“Basically what they’re doing is using our trail that is already there,” she said. “It was an easy connection to make” and “kind of a win-win,” since there will be new volunteers to help out with maintenance.
Knight added that it might also help out their property values, because real estate agents love to advertise connections to hiking trails.
Knight, who is retired and enjoys keeping busy working on trails, is also the chairman of the Trails Committee, a subdivision of the city’s conservation that became officially recognized earlier this year.
He said the 7.5-mile West End Farm Trail – which goes through three farms from the New Hampshire Audubon up to Carter Hill Orchard – was what got all the volunteers started about a decade ago.
“People have been dreaming about that on the conservation commission and the Trails Committee for years and years. It must have been 10 years ago when I first heard about it,” he said.
Then the city bought two parcels of land to fill in missing pieces and got three or four trail agreements from private property owners – and the dream was realized. Since then, they made a loop off the West End Farm Trail to incorporate Swope Park, and now they’re taking a step farther to make the loop extend back to the start.
It was a natural extension for hikers who didn’t want to walk back the way they came, he said. “You got to the other end, then you had to get back.”
Different trail builders have their individual preferences: How far should clipped brush be carried away? To rake or not to rake? Do we need a bridge here? But Knight said he’ll always spend the time to dig away at a hill if it means the resulting trail will be nice and level in the end.
And his philosophy hasn’t changed since the time he dug up a nest of ground wasps this way.
Fenstermacher, the senior planner for Concord, said when she first started working here she was amazed that the capital city could have nearly 70 miles of trails and still have active farms. She said it speaks to good open-space planning efforts from her predecessors.
And the fact that the core group of 10 to 15 trail volunteers is so enthusiastic about carrying out its visions makes sure that every bit of public space is put to good use, she said.
“They’re super dedicated to the point where you’ve got to reel them in sometimes,” she said.
The public has been eager to take advantage of their work, too. When Five Rivers Conservation Trust held a grand opening of the Swope Park loop in the fall, 150 people attended, Executive Director Beth McGuinn said.
Knight said he thinks the latest project is going to be just as popular, if not more.
“That’s going to be a 13-mile loop, which is amazing within city limits,” he said.
(Nick Reid can be reached at 369-3325, nreid@cmonitor.com or on Twitter at @NickBReid.)