Above, Forest Society staffers Susanne Kibler-Hacker and Matt Scaccia walk among the boulders and stairs of a new section of the Main Trail on Mount Major, which officially opened Thursday. Paula Tracy photo
By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org
ALTON – It was a two-fer of sorts on Mount Major Thursday as the Forest Society and state and local officials celebrated the opening of the first half mile of a new Main Trail, 1.8 mile trail, here.
The $360,000 public-private partnership to build a new trail section is a beautiful, meandering path through a giant boulder field which has 130 new granite steps to climb.
Not only a dramatic environmental improvement from a heavily eroded, straight up trail, the design will lead to improved safety for the estimated 80,000 hikers who come and are of all ages and abilities each year.
The trail will actually help protect Lake Winnipesaukee from future runoff damage from storms that are increasing with climate change and those from slips and falls on the former trail.
The Big Lake, just below the popular hike to 1,786 feet above it, with views to Mount Washington, has been facing increasing threats from storm damage and resulting turbidity which can help grow cyanobacteria and milfoil and degrade the clarity and quality of the prized water on the 72-square mile lake.
Gathering for the hike up the new trail were officials for the Society for the Protection of NH Forests, which now owns the tract and raised funds for it, officials from the Town of Alton, and members of partner groups along with Executive Councilor Joe Kenney of Wakefield, a Republican who helped secure some of the money for the trail project.
“EVERYONE CLIMBS MOUNT MAJOR”
Mount Major is the most hiked mountain in New Hampshire behind Mount Monadnock, said Jack Savage, president of the Forest Society.
During COVID-19 the public came in droves and discovered the family-friendly trail, said Ryan Heath, Alton town administrator.
There were days when the former police chief recalled parked cars for miles on either side of Route 11 and lots of calls for service.
The motto that “Everyone Climbs Mount Major” never became more true.
“Mount Major has always been a huge part of the Alton community. Both for our residents here and also for our many visitors,” he said. For 24 years as a town employee, he said he watched this area grow and grow in popularity and the importance of the power of nature which allowed for “some sanity” during the COVID-19 crisis. The same level of interest in the hike and traffic has kept up, he said.
“Also over those years, unfortunately, the trails needed some attention,” he said. “I know the other members of the Alton community are pleased to see all the improvements.”
DESIGNED FOR SUSTAINABILITY, SAFETY AND WATER QUALITY
Erin Amadon, owner of Town 4 Trail Services who designed and worked since May with OBP Trailworks on cutting a new trail and the filling and closing of the old trail, said she was pleased with the product, which addresses two concerns: erosion and public safety.
As she hiked up the new trail section, Amadon noted that the way water moves through a watershed and down a hill into a lake like Winnipesaukee is a consideration in design. The faster the water falls and the steeper the terrain, the less likely it gets underground and filters more slowly through to the lowest level, often a pond or lake.
She designed a meandering trail which is less steep and allows for more filtration in the ground.
Another important aspect of her design was for the user experience.
“Because I know this trail is so loved and I wanted to make sure the change would bring them to some cool spots, to these little boulder areas,” she said.
A straight up trail focuses the eye on the trail and not the forest. She said she designed it so that the eye was on the woods and a field of glacial till, with big and cracked boulders that rolled into the place they are now, thousands of years ago.
CYANOBACTERIA AND ITS LINKS TO RUNOFF
Water quality issues have emerged this summer in the lakes region after a warm winter and many cases of cyanobacteria being noticed for the first time on some large open areas of Lake Winnipesaukee.
Amadon said in the first phase of the project, from the parking lot to the new section opened Thursday, she filled a gully with two feet of material and used different types to allow water to slow down and shed properly and retain any silt which was not getting washed down.
Four years later, she said, in this phase, the area is not seeing the same sediment problems of the past and that has a lot to do with making sure water is flowing through the hillside, not over it.
NO MORE ‘CANYON’
Another huge aspect of the project to help with water quality was the actual burying of the old Main Trail with tree stumps, shredded wood products and a mix of soil which was trucked in and filled in.
“So this trail,” she pointed to the old trail which can be seen in places along the new trail. “It is right here, was a fall line trail that went straight up the hillside. So a lot of things we did was install check dams, check steps, big boulders, create some holes for water to come in, deposit that silt material and then the water continues on, also to decompact the soil…so vegetation can start to grow. And when vegetation starts to grow, it starts to absorb some of that other water, the excessive water that is coming down the side. A lot of different techniques,” to help with potential storm damage.
She said already this summer, during construction, there have been a number of storm events.
Amadon said they compared the new trail with another trail, the Ames Road, which construction workers used to deliver materials for the project. She said the Ames Road is straight up the hill while the new trail winds around and it did a lot better after storms than Ames Road
After the storms, she said “you could really start to see the erosion on that,” she said of Ames Road, where as the new section half, there was little comparative damage because “we dealt with trail slope and upsloping the treadway and we looked at the grade of the trail. Anywhere there was more than 10 percent (of elevation change) we put in stairs to help…slow that water down,” she said.
The trail has crushed rock and is lined with small rocks which are embedded and trimmed with the almost mulch looking material and there are 130 steps in the half mile trail segment.
Savage noted that some people miss what was called the “canyon” of the old trail.
It was a shale-like substance and was rather an unsafe surface for people walking on, and was also “washing down debris right into Lake Winnipesaukee. Not a great thing,” and he said it was going to be very difficult to improve that particular part of the trail to a standard that would be sustainable.
Above, At the ribbon cutting for a new section of the Main Trail on Mount Major Thursday are Executive Councilor Joe Kenney of Wakefield, Alton Town Manager Ryan Heath and Jack Savage, president of the Society for the Protection of NH Forests. Paula Tracy photo
A CAMPAIGN OF SUSTAINABILITY
In 2013 the Forest Society launched the $1.8 million campaign to protect 950 acres on and surrounding Mount Major. It had been largely held by private property owners who allowed hiking on the trail.
Savage said the institution, which is almost 125 years old, wants to make sure these trails are sustainable over time.
“It is no longer an unsustainable canyon, now a really fascinating walk through the glacial erratics going up to the rest of the main trail to the top of the mountain,” he said.
The trail is 1.8 miles so “we have some work to go,” Savage said, “And it won’t all look like this, but this was an expensive undertaking.”
He said funding from the Recreational Trails Program, which Kenney and the Executive Council approved, was helpful and they had over 100 donors who helped fund the project including two donors, Dave Roberts who left a bequest to benefit the tract and George Durand, who also left a bequest.
Those gifts, Savage said, allow the Forest Society to take positive steps forward, to commit to doing the work and then go out and find more money that can be raised.
He also wanted to thank the Town of Alton for its outstanding partnership and the state Department of Transportation which owned the parking lot and is now owned by the Forest Society along with some land around it.
The 68-vehicle parking lot is now paved and has porta potties and an information kiosk.
Savage said he also wanted to give a hand to Amidon as a nationally known, woman-owned business which is “advancing the science of trail building” and thanked OBP Trailworks for their collaboration. He also thanked the state Department of Natural and Cultural Resources which owns some land near the summit and the Belknap Range Conservation Coalition for its partnership to protect the Belknap Range which is a relatively unfragmented forest land and is “relatively resilient from a climate standpoint,” which helps lake quality.
Kenney said he loves the Forest Society “because they are on a mission to preserve the quality of living in New Hampshire” and are one of the largest private landowners in his district.
Mount Major’s popularity is a good thing but a challenge to manage because of that. He said the trail is intergenerational and accessible to many without having to travel a great distance.
He said having a sustainable trail system like this makes it easier for him to sleep on nights when rain just gushes from the sky.
To hike the trail, visit The All Trails guide https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/new-hampshire/mount-major–3
