Forest Ecology

Black Bear Loop

December 29, 2020

DOWNLOAD FULL DIRECTIONS -pdf

Driving directions:

From the Hanover Center green, head north on Hanover Center Rd.
Shortly before Rennie Rd, turn R (E) on Ferson Rd.
Turn L at T onto Three Mile Rd.
Turn right at T onto Ibey (sometimes spelled Iby) Rd.
Proceed up the hill 0.1 mile to the small parking area at the road’s maintained end opposite a cape house.

What you should know:

This is a mostly easy hike with a few short steeper sections.
The route is well marked with flagging and blue diamonds.
Foot travel only.
Dogs are welcome but must be under your control; please pick up after your pet.
Deer hunting is permitted in season; dress appropriately.
The Black Bear Loop trail was built in 2020 on the Conservancy’s Britton Forest.

BRIEF HIKING DIRECTIONS

From the trailhead parking area, take the Class VI Plummer Hill Road, the continuation of Ibey Road.
Cross a small stream and turn R off the old road at a large old maple and a barn foundation.
Follow the trail over and then along a stone wall.
Bear L at a trail junction up and across a small stream on a log bridge.
The trail visits a large glacial erratic and an old maple tree, unusual survivor of an insect infestation here.
The trail returns to the junction; stay straight to return to the stone wall and eventually the barn foundation.
Bear R at the foundation and immediately L onto Plummer Hill Road to return to your car.

FULL DIRECTIONS

At the trailhead parking area, take a moment to look around. The house stands on the site of the former Smith farmhouse, which was standing here by 1799. By 1892, it was owned by Henry L. Barnes. The stone wall just L of the house marks a boundary of the Mayor-Niles Forest, a 92-acre mountainside property given to the Hanover Conservancy in 2013 by Michael and Lili Mayor and John Niles. This land, and the 79-acre Britton Forest just beyond, were once part of Barnes’ 220 acre family farm –by the mid-19^th century, likely treeless sheep pasture! More about that as we proceed.
Begin your hike by heading up the Class VI Plummer Hill Road, the unmaintained continuation of Ibey Road. At R is the trailhead for the Mayor-Niles Forest, where you can pick up a trail map and guide. Today we’ll continue N for a brief time on Plummer Hill Road, crossing a small stream on logs placed at R.
This road dates back to the 18^th century, when it apparently dead-ended farther up around Plummer Hill and did not continue on to nearby Lyme. However, the old road, discontinued in 1979, now serves as a section of the Harris Trail, offering some of the best back-country skiing in Hanover. The Harris Trail begins 3.2 miles S at Moose Mountain Lodge Road and runs nearly the entire length of Moose Mountain, following a major tributary of Mink Brook, passing Dartmouth’s Class of ’66 Lodge, and crossing the old Wolfeboro Road before arriving at Ibey Road just below where you parked. The Harris Trail continues 1.5 miles up Plummer Hill Road and has recently been re-opened all the way to Goose Pond Road thanks to cooperative landowners and a dedicated volunteer.
But back to today’s hike. Just past the crossing, look ahead at R for an old maple snag that marks your turn – and Farmer Barnes’ former route – to the remains of his bank barn. New Hampshire is not blessed with much level land, and any sensible hill farmer would use sloped land to his advantage, building his barn back into the hillside. This avoided taking up precious level space and provided handy access to multiple levels of the building. While a century’s leafy detritus makes it a little hard to see, a close look at the drylaid stone foundation shows how the barn was built into the hill so one could enter either from where you are standing or reach an upper level by walking up and around to the back.
Barnes barn foundation
Find your trail heading NE past the lower L side of the foundation. The trail is marked with various colors of flagging being replaced with more durable blue diamond markers.
Cross a small drainage on stepping stones and continue as the easy path takes you through mixed woods.
10 minutes’ walk from your car, cross a stone wall and immediately turn R as the path follows the wall. One is tempted to wonder why anyone would build a stone wall in the forest –to keep the trees from wandering off? Indeed, over a quarter million miles of stone walls just like this were built in New England and New York before 1870, most of them in the first 20 years of that century, and mostly to contain sheep. Imagine this space as an open grassy pasture when the wall was built, except for the upper slopes of Moose Mountain.
The stone wall marks the boundary between the Conservancy’s Mayor-Niles Forest and Britton Forest, the generous gift of Doug and Katharine Britton in 2017. This now wooded parcel had been in the Britton family for many years. When Doug decided to donate the property to the Conservancy, he asked that a trail be built here for the public to enjoy – and here you are. With a grant from the Quabbin to Cardigan Partnership and gifts from friends and neighbors, the Conservancy confirmed the W boundary of the parcel and engaged the Upper Valley Trails Alliance’s high school trail corps to build the trail during the summer of 2020, following a full year’s observations of soil conditions and wildlife movements to determine the best route. The trail explores the S part of the property, not far from trails on the Mayor-Niles Forest, to avoid disturbing a high-use bear area on the N side.
The trail follows the old wall for a short while and then turns L, winding pleasantly up the slope. The trail builders benched the path here for a more level treadway.
The trail bears R and up more steadily through mixed woods.
10 minutes from the stone wall crossing, arrive at a fork where markings on a large hardwood straight ahead catch your eye. A cut stump at your feet bears an arrow pointing L to begin the loop.
The trail rises gently and, when leaves are off the trees, offers views at L into the valley below.
9 minutes from the junction, cross a log bridge built by Hypertherm volunteers. Listen for the music of a small waterfall just below. This stream, like its sisters on the Mayor-Niles Forest, is part of the headwater network for Hewes Brook, which flows down off the NW slope of Moose Mountain in to Lyme, past Crossroads Academy, and on to the Connecticut River. By protecting these headwater streams, keeping them naturally forested and shaded, the Conservancy protects cool and clean water for brook trout while providing security against downstream flooding during the heavy storms that come with climate change.
Once across the log bridge, keep your eyes out for a tiny forest of Lycopodium, or clubmoss. There are at least 3 species here – ground pine, ground cedar, and shining club moss, miniature ancient cousins of the huge forests that once offered shade to dinosaurs.
As you continue, look for deer scrapes and antler rubs on smaller trees near the trail. These are message boards for deer looking to see who has been by and their breeding status. They also serve as handy scratching posts for ridding maturing antlers of their nourishing velvet.
Don’t miss a pretty view down at R into the valley of the stream you recently crossed.
10 minutes’ hike past the bridge, arrive at curious slabs of stone that look as if a giant had just lost a game of dominoes. One of them offers the perfect seat for a snack, with a great view of one of this trail’s highlights – a grand glacial erratic.
This rock had some help getting here from nearby Holt’s Ledge in Lyme, but the icy conveyor belt melted and disappeared 14,000 years ago. Spend a few moments admiring the growth of rich moss on its downslope side encouraged by moisture rising from the stream below. Topping the huge rock is a toupee of rock polypody, a tiny evergreen fern that seems to like such perches.
The trail descends to pass on the L side of the erratic. As you go by, look up to admire the ambition of a small shrub that has claimed a foothold on top of the rock.
The trail continues toward a small stream, bearing R as you approach it. Nearly 10 minutes after leaving the erratic, cross the stream on a double log bridge – built by Hypertherm volunteers like the one you crossed lower down on this same brook. As you do, look upstream to see where several braided channels come together. It’s places like this that allow this little brook to play its part in capturing and holding stormwater before sending it gently downhill.
The trail turns L and up after crossing the stream. Note the finely corrugated bark of the ash trees here. Ash enjoys damp soils and is a good partner for the stream. A fallen ash at the far side of the brook’s little valley guides you on your way.
5 minutes after crossing the stream, a big old sugar maple comes into view. It shouldn’t be much of a landmark, but indeed it is. You can’t recall seeing other maples of this size here, except near the barn foundation. Shouldn’t this mixed northern hardwoods-hemlock-red spruce forest have lots of them? Yes – but they were mostly cut in the 1980s during a salvage operation following an infestation of the saddled prominent moth. Apparently this one missed the logger’s saw, or maybe it was left as a seed source for the once and future forest.
The trail turns L near the maple and heads gradually down through the fallen brush of dying birches. Paper, or white birch, is an early successional tree that comes in to the sunny openings created by fires, logging, or windthrow, but doesn’t do as well once its longer-lived companions shade it out.
About 15 minutes’ walk from the big maple, the trail turns L twice before arriving at the end of the loop. Pause here to consider a red spruce at R. It was this species of tree that alerted the country to the scourge of acid rain in the 1980s, when scientists from the University of Vermont noticed waves of dying red spruce on the W slopes of Camel’s Hump…the slopes that caught polluted winds blowing in from industrialized parts of Ohio, Michigan, and SW Ontario. Efforts to control air-borne pollution were successful enough that acid rain is largely a thing of the past and the spruces are recovering, but they face a new threat – climate change. Barely tolerant of warm temperatures, red spruce survives on “sky islands” around the summits of the southern Appalachian Mountains, along the Maine coast, and in higher elevation parts of New England such as this. These populations will surely shrink as the climate warms. Their presence here contributes to wildlife habitat value – offering food and shelter for ruffed grouse, snowshoe hare, and small mammals in times of snow, and is among the many reasons the Conservancy was pleased to protect this land.
You’ve just spent an hour roaming an unbroken forest – another key reason the Britton Forest is important. The property is surrounded on three sides by other forested, protected and/or public lands: the Mayor-Niles Forest to the S, the Appalachian Trail corridor owned by the National Park Service to the E along the mountain’s spine, and the Plummer Tract to the N, owned by the Town of Hanover. Keeping all of these higher elevation forests intact means continuous, cooler room for wildlife to roam, especially as the climate warms.
It’s time to retrace your steps – bear L at the trail junction and down the hill.
Soon you arrive at the stone wall, turning R to follow it briefly before turning L to cross it and continue down to the barn foundation guarded by its ancient maple.
Turn L onto Plummer Hill Road, and return to your car 10 minutes after crossing the wall. Resolve to return another day to explore the trails on the nearby Mayor-Niles Forest.

This Hanover Hike of the Month is generously sponsored by

Hike Directions & Map – Full PDF

Driving directions:

From Downtown Hanover, drive east for 1.6miles on East Wheelock Street, up a long hill to the junction of Grasse and Trescott Roads.
Park in the unpaved informal parking area on the northeast side of this intersection.

What you should know:

This loop hike takes you through the Balch Hill Natural Area to the summit with its beautiful views. Along the way you’ll visit grandfather trees that may have witnessed our town’s founding – including the Grafton County Champion Northern Red Oak.
You’ll be walking on lands owned by Dartmouth College, the Hanover Conservancy, and the Town of Hanover. Conservation easements and other restrictions protect some but not all of this land.
Trails have occasional short up-and-down grades but are easy for the entire family.
Foot travel only; no bicycles please.
Archery hunting for deer is permitted Sept 15 through Dec. 15; blaze orange is a good wardrobe choice.
Dogs are welcome but must be under your control; please pick up after your pet.

BRIEF HIKING DIRECTIONS

Take the red-blazed Grasse Road Trail from the trailhead kiosk to the summit, crossing a small footbridge.
From the summit kiosk, take the Fire Trail down to the junction with the Maple Trail.
Return to the summit and take the Hemlock Trail down to a large fallen tree.
Return to the summit and head for a group of apple trees and a stone bench. Look for the Piane Trail sign and turn L onto the red-blazed Grasse Road Loop.
Take this trail to the Champion Red Oak; continue to the small footbridge and turn R to return to your car.

FULL DIRECTIONS

Begin your hike at the trailhead kiosk, across Grasse Road from the parking area. The Hanover Lions Club generously donated this timber frame kiosk in 2011. Here, you can read a bit about the history of this land and pick up a trail guide if you wish.
The Grasse Road Trail heads across the slope on Dartmouth College land. This section was re-routed in 2015 by an Upper Valley Trails crew to follow a gentler, more sustainable path than the original.
The path soon turns to avoid a series of downed trees. What happened here? A short but violent windstorm on Patriot’s Day in April, 2007 blew down many trees on this part of the hill, and it will be years before they degrade back into the earth.
For several years near this spot stood a deer “exclosure” where Dartmouth ecology students conducted a study to determine the effect of deer browse on the vegetation. Two identical plots, one fenced against deer and the other unfenced, were compared each year. Here are the results for the plot in this area. The blue bars indicate total number of plants in the fenced plots where deer cannot enter to browse, while red bars indicate the number of plants in the unfenced plots. In 2012, before the fencing went up, both plots had nearly the same number of plants. Contrast that to 2015! The largest change is in the number of wildflowers, especially Canada mayflower.
You’ve reached the low stone wall marking the southern boundary. Look for fragments of sheep fencing (large rectangles of wire fence) that date from the pre-Civil War “sheep craze” in the Upper Valley. In 1840, Hanover had over 10,000 sheep grazing on its hillsides, including this one, while the human population was around 2,000.
Follow the Grasse Road Trail as it makes a right turn away from the wall and heads north among tall, cool hemlocks.
At the junction with the Hunter East Trail (route to the Morrison Road neighborhood), turn left and cross a small log bridge over a wet area and onto Hanover Conservancy land.

The trail bears right then immediately left and heads up the slope past some dramatic pine snags. In ten minutes’ walk from your car, you’ll reach the 920’ summit.
Enjoy the sweeping views from this, the only open summit in town where the public is welcome. Twenty-one miles to the south is grand Mount Ascutney. The spire of Baker Tower marks downtown Hanover in the near view to the west, while on the western horizon, 29 miles across Vermont, the sharp peak of Killington appears. To the northwest, our volunteers have been restoring the view toward Gile Mountain in Norwich.
Historically, the summit of Balch Hill was used as a pasture for grazing sheep and cattle. Records indicate that it was cleared of most trees for more than a century. In our experience, those trees badly want to return! We’ve been working to restore the orchard on the hill and keep the views open by mowing the meadow.

View of Hanover from Balch Hill in winter; undated photo

Once known as Corey Hill after an early owner, Balch Hill takes its name from former owner Adna P. Balch (1817-1889). Balch, a prominent citizen who served in the legislature in 1876-1877, promoted the development of the railroad in the Connecticut River Valley and was a director of the Hanover Gas Company. In the early to mid-twentieth century, the summit was known as Dewey Hill Pasture, after owners in those later days.
You can imagine what demand there might be to develop this hillside with its astounding views, so close to town. That’s why the Hanover Conservancy, then known as the Hanover Conservation Council, set out to purchase the summit when a New York developer proposed first 126 condominiums and then 49 luxury homes for this place. The community came together to protect the land, with the Council and Town later adding to it with a second purchase from the Garipay family. Make a note to come back for the annual Balch Hill Kite Day in May or the Hawk Watch in September, to see how much the community enjoys this natural area today. It was worth the effort!
After visiting the summit kiosk, erected by the Council in memory of Alice Jackson in 2009, begin your tour of Balch Hill’s biggest trees. Take the wide Fire Trail behind the kiosk for a short distance to its junction with the Maple Trail.
Take this right turn and in just a few steps you meet some venerable old sugar maples that may once have marked the path of an early road. These ancients stand out against their much younger brethren.
Head back up the Maple and Fire Trails to the summit. Pass the kiosk and nearby bench, and head down to the right toward the Hemlock Trail sign. You’ll soon come to the remains of an enormous old oak tree, its split trunk and massive limbs now draped across the landscape, having lost their battle with gravity and time. The trail actually passes under the fallen trunk. Here’s what it looked like in 2014 (right).
Return to the summit for your last view before visiting the largest resident of Balch Hill. From the low bench near the summit maple, walk west and downhill toward the view of downtown, to another stone bench near a group of crabapple trees. Just beyond, you’ll see a sign for the Piane and Grasse Rd Loop Trails on the left, nailed to a white birch. Head down this trail only a few steps and make a sharp left onto the red-blazed Grasse Rd Loop.
The Grasse Rd Loop trail follows the contour, leading you in a couple of minutes to the County Champion Northern Red Oak, marked with a small sign. Despite its size, it can be easy to miss as its bulk is so far overhead. Look for it opposite the cut trunk of a tree.
Neighbors are sometimes reluctant to cut trees along boundaries, and we think it was this instinct that protected this massive tree, the largest survivor of its kind in Grafton County. When measured by the state’s Big Tree Steward in 2014, it had a circumference of 196 inches, a height of 114 feet, and an average crown spread of 80 feet. Had its cousin on the Hemlock Trail not lost its limbs, that tree would have been even larger.
After admiring this giant and imagining the history it must have witnessed, continue on the trail that soon bears left to head up a small valley to the small footbridge you crossed earlier. You’re now five minutes from your car.
Cross the bridge, bear right at the junction with the Hunter East Trail, and return down the hill to your car.

The volunteer Balch Hill Stewardship Committee cares for this place and always welcomes help. Contact us if you’d like to get involved! We welcome contributions to the Balch Hill Stewardship Fund to help with the costs of annual mowing, vegetation management, and trail improvements.

December 2016, updated September 2020

Plant a Tree for Earth Day

April 21, 2020

Trees give us many gifts – clean air and water, places to recreate, wildlife habitat…and carbon storage. Restoring trees to the landscape is the single best low-tech, low-cost pathway for storing more carbon on the land. A forest can store an average of 2-3 tons/acre of C0₂ each year. With just a will and a spade, we can get started pulling carbon from the air right now.

A NATURAL CARBON SINK – To prevent the most dangerous impacts of climate change, greenhouse gas emissions must reach net zero by 2050. Capturing carbon from the air naturally – by putting trees to work – can provide significant cumulative carbon removal through 2050 and beyond.

When choosing a tree for your home landscape, consider this:

Fast growing trees store the most carbon during their first decades.
Long-lived trees can keep carbon stored for generations without releasing it in decomposition.
Native trees will thrive in these soils and best support local wildlife.
Low-maintenance, disease-resistant species will do better without greenhouse-gas-producing fertilizers and equipment.

Red Maple identification image — Red Maple

We suggest Northern Red Oak — Acorns attract wildlife and the leaves develop a brick-red fall color. Red oak is fast growing, easy to transplant, and tolerant of urban conditions (including dry and acidic soil and air pollution). Best growth is in full sun and well drained, slightly acidic, sandy loam. Northern red oak often reaches 60-90’ and occasionally 150’. Trees may live up to 500 years.

A colorful alternative for damp soils is Red Maple — the most abundant native tree in eastern North America. Known for its early brilliant fall foliage and red flowers, it is usually found in moist woodlands and wet swamps in sun or part shade. A medium-sized, fast-growing tree (2-5’/yr), its seeds and buds are eaten by birds and mammals, but it is not preferred by deer.

Work continues at Pine Park

April 16, 2019

Pine Park is Hanover’s first natural area permanently preserved as a park and today functions as the town’s “central park” for the enjoyment of walkers, joggers, skiers and many others. The park is owned by the Pine Park Association, a voluntary nonprofit that dates back to 1900, when a group of 17 local residents sought to prevent the Diamond Match Company from harvesting trees along the riverbank just north of the Ledyard Bridge.

Stay up to date and learn more about this beloved area at PinePark.org.

Emerald Ash Borer update

February 16, 2019

In face of Emerald Ash Borer invasion, NH lifts statewide quarantine, relying on homeowner efforts to slow the spread of this deadly pest.

EABs are here, and our ash trees will never be the same. Individual landowners are the best equipped to treat and save trees on private property. Throughout New England, large tracts of forest and roadways will be cleared of trees before infestation (when removal is much safer and lumber may be sold), in stages during the active infestation as budgets allow. Towns all across our region are using state resources to take inventories of ash trees within their town limits, and set priorities for removal or possible treatment. Stay informed: VT Invasives has an easy-to-navigate site, and the UNH Cooperative Extension regularly publishes information, like this blog and accompanying homeowner handout.

Hanover receives special deer hunting permits from NH Fish & Game

August 23, 2018

New webpage on local hunting coming soon…

View a 2018 map of areas where these permits can be used, and read more about the data behind Hanover’s multi-year application process from the Town’s Biodiversity Committee.