New Hampshire has so many hiking trails that if stretched out, they’d reach California and partway back, but one small section is drawing attention right now — a reminder that these “natural” paths that make life in the Granite State so delightful require a ridiculous amount of unending work.
The section is at the start of the Lincoln Woods Trail, going north from the Kancamagus Highway into the Pemigewasset Wilderness. The White Mountain National Forest, which oversees a whopping 1,200 miles of trails, took the unusual act of shutting the section as of Monday because it is crumbling underfoot. They’re bringing in heavy equipment and prepping for summer maintenance, said Ryan Twomey, who manages the recreation program for the Pemigewasset Ranger District.
This stretch of Lincoln Woods Trail runs on an old railroad bed that was used to haul logs out of the mountains, so it is flat and wide, making it very popular with cross-country skiers. It is a main route into the heart of the White Mountain region and hikers will have to use the nearby East Side Trail while it is closed.
The problem is that the Lincoln Woods Trail is right next to the Pemigewasset River. Tropical Storm Irene and subsequent storms have destabilized the river bank to the point that the trail might slide into the water.
Except for the heavy machinery part, blocking a trail for maintenance work is pretty familiar to anybody who volunteers on a town conservation committee or for an outdoor group. I’m one of the thousands of such people, although I’m a feeble amateur compared to the trail crews that work for the Forest Service, Appalachian Mountain Club or other regional groups.
Those folks haul cables, winches and hoists deep into the woods to move rocks the size of a Fiat 500, carry stacks of lumber for miles to make bog bridges, and dig enough drainage trenches in a day to divert a good-sized creek. I mostly snip off branches and scrape debris out of water bars, the little trenches that divert runoff from the trail. As the saying goes, it ain’t much, but it’s honest work.
And it’s necessary work if, like me, you think that hiking on trails is one of the great things about life here.
For many trails in the Northeast woods, it takes just a couple years of neglect for the path to become hard to use or even find. Branches fall and block it, “face slappers” (horizontal branches) fill the space, painted blazes fade and running water washes away the footing. It takes constant effort to slow the entropy.
Sometimes the work can be extensive, as is being seen on the Franconia Loop Restoration effort, a million-dollar project stretching over years to save one of the world’s greatest day hikes before we love it to death. But mostly the work is small and repetitive and, as I said, unending.
New Hampshire has had paths created for recreation since 1819 when the Crawford Family built their namesake path up to the summit of Mount Washington. It’s still in use today and I shudder to think how many person-hours have been devoted to keeping it in shape over those 207 years.
But as Lincoln Woods Trail, the Franconia Loop and that little cut-through in our town forest that doesn’t have a name will tell you, without those person-hours we wouldn’t be able to spend our free time huffing and puffing through the great outdoors. If you enjoy hiking at all, you should look into doing some of it, too.
