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Moose Mountain Lodge and Ledges

June 1, 2018

Hike information & map – full PDF

Driving Directionstrail map

  • From Etna Village, head N on Hanover Center Road
  • Turn R on Ruddsboro Road and drive 1.8 miles
  • Turn L on Old Dana Road
  • Turn R just past large red barn on R, onto Moose Mountain Lodge Road (not marked)
  • Drive 0.8 miles to top of road. Park at the marked trailhead parking area just past the beaver dam.

What You Should Know

  • Foot travel only. Dogs welcome if under close control.
  • Bring binoculars and bird book for viewing waterfowl on Mill Pond and exploring distant views.
  • This hike celebrates the  history of Moose Mountain Lodge and explores the wild ridge of the mountain. We will view the former Lodge site from an overlook; please note that the site is privately owned.
  • The route visits part of a 3,800-acre block of protected higher-elevation wildlife habitat on Moose Mountain.
  • The hike ends with an optional visit to protected 18th century mill ruins on the steep mountainside.

BRIEF DIRECTIONS

  • Begin at the sign reading “Mill Pond Forest & Huggins Trail Access.”
  • Bear L at first trail junction to visit Mill Pond
  • Return to trail junction and turn L onto Pasture Road
  • Turn R onto Baboon Bypass, cross drainage, and reach first views
  • Continue on trail to second pasture and third pastures and cross stone wall
  • Bear R at arrow, head downhill, and shortly after, turn L at arrow
  • Bear R at sign parallel to the trail indicating the Orange Diamond Ridge Trail. Head up a short steep section to a mossy ledge.
  • Continue to second open ledge.
  • Retrace your steps to return to your car.

Hiking Directions

  • Begin your hike at the sign reading, “Mill Pond Forest & Huggins Trail Access.” To forever ensure public access to the network of trails you’ll be exploring, the Shumway and Huggins families donated conservation easements on this area to the Hanover Conservancy in 2016.
  • Cross a small drainage and note the series of small beaver ponds at L. By late 2017, the beavers left after many years of entertaining their neighbors with sightings of cruising kits and evening tail slaps on the water, as well as plugged culverts and “free-range forestry.”
  • The thread of infant Mink Brook has reappeared with the lack of diligent management by these aquatic engineers.
  • Arrive at the first trail junction and bear L. Within 15 paces look for a cellar hole at L. This was the high-elevation c. 1800 home of miller David Woodward, who built the dam on Mill Pond and an impressive sawmill and gristmill on the steep falls of Mink Brook below where you left your car (optional visit at end of this hike). Woodward’s house was probably larger than the modest cellar hole, which, in the days of hand digging, must have presented a challenge to build.
  • 2 beavers in Mill Pond
    Mill Pond beavers; photo by Kay Shumway

    Continue on the path a few minutes further to a bench at the pond shore. It’s time for a picnic, or at least to pull out the binoculars! Ten-acre Mill Pond is the highest water body in Hanover and the primary source of Mink Brook, the town’s largest stream. Set in a saddle on the mountain ridge, it may have originally been a small pond or perhaps a marsh. Around 1800, Woodward built a drylaid stone dam (just out of view at L, beyond the spruces) to raise the water level some 6-8 feet (it has since partly silted in). Beavers later took over and have been managing the pond off and on, ever since. Today, the entire shoreline remains undisturbed: Hanover Conservancy easements protect the N side with the Dana Pasture Natural Area on the S (co-owned by the Town of Hanover and a Dana heir).

  • Directly across the water is an impressive beaver lodge. Scan the pond’s surface for waterfowl and other birds. On the day we visited, three male mallards were holding a bachelor party at the pond.
  • Retrace your steps to the cellar hole and trail junction. At this time of year, violets are in bloom on the forest floor and you may spot the cheerful red of partridgeberries.
  • A sign for Pasture Road and a green moose mark the trail junction. Turn L; soon you’ll see the old stone wall marking this Class VI road. Where Pasture Road once met Moose Mountain Lodge Road is anybody’s guess – our bet is the area under the beaver dam.
  • Pass by the first gap in the wall, which leads to a private home, and look for a second gap marked with a sign for “Baboon Bypass” a few yards beyond the wall. Turn R here. This short and somewhat indistinct trail leads W toward your next destination, across a small drainage. Blue sky appears ahead and an arrow on a barbed-wire-garbed tree directs you to swing L into an opening.
  • Arriving in an old pasture (first of three), leave the path and head through low brambles and blueberry bushes toward a big pine and two old fence posts. It seems all of central and southern Vermont is spread before you, with sharp-peaked Killington presiding.
  • It seems all of central and southern Vermont is spread before you, with sharp-peaked Killington presiding. For 80 years, just below the brow of this field, stood Moose Mountain Lodge, an icon in the Upper Valley and legend in the ski world. The Lodge is now history, having been removed in the last few years, but we’re going to tell you all about it!
  • overhead view of lodge in 1949
    Lodge, pastures, and ski slopes, 1949

    Let’s start with long-time owner Kay Shumway’s recollections: “The Lodge is a big old comfortable log building perched high on the western side of Moose Mountain. It has survived 80 years of snow, sleet, ice, wind, and lightning. The weather comes across the Connecticut River Valley and sweeps up the mountain, wearing away at the log surfaces like sandpaper. Sometimes the wind gets unbearable with its relentless buffeting. We often remark that it’s almost like living on a ship at sea.”

  • The Leslie brothers built the lodge in 1937-38. They were identical, inseparable twins – when one came to Dartmouth, the other had to come too! Bill Robes was teaching skiing then and the boys were hooked. Robes, who married into the Dana family, he said he knew of a place where they could build a ski lodge, and the rest is history.
  • The Lodge opened in 1938 for downhill skiing complete with rope tows and skiing on cleared slopes below. There was even night skiing on a lighted slope, which according to Kay was not too successful. The Lodge primarily served Dartmouth, housing college guests and students’ dates. Back then skiers careened down the mountain’s sunny west slopes on wooden skis. The road up to the Lodge was part of the adventure. Most who arrived by car parked at the base of the mountain and used a crank telephone to summon the Lodge’s Ford woody station wagon for a ride up the hill.
  • From 1943-45, the Lodge closed as gas rationing during WWII curtailed driving for pleasure and cut off fuel for the tows. It reopened from 1946-49 but was soon empty and vandalized. In 1955, Bob Jones bought the abandoned Lodge and nearby cottage as a boys’ summer camp. Camp Moose Hi ran for three years until Agnar and Anah Pytte bought the Lodge and Elisha and Anne Huggins the nearby cottage. John and Mary Clarke acquired the Lodge in 1972, turning it back into an inn for cross-country skiers and cutting some of trails we still enjoy today.
  • view of lodge in winter
    The Lodge in 1975

    Three years later, Peter and Kay Shumway visited in a snowstorm. At the time, Peter was in the lumber business in New York and Kay taught in a Head Start program. Peter’s father had been a ski jumper at Dartmouth (Class of 1913) and when he and some friends skied the 25 miles to Mt. Moosilauke, people would stop them and ask what they had on their feet. The Shumways happily bought the Lodge and it continued to host in the back country skiing tradition.

  • The Shumways welcomed guests for the next 35 years, retiring in 2011. Kay recalls, “Inn-keeping on our beautiful mountain allowed us to live in this peaceful place in isolation while still meeting interesting people.”
  • In 1985, the Shumways purchased a 313-acre mountain tract just N of the Lodge to keep it from being developed. Their forester, John O’Brien, helped them return its forest to health after prior heavy logging, always with an eye to ski trail potential. In 2017, these public-spirited landowners conveyed a permanent conservation easement on the Shumway Forest to the Hanover Conservancy, protecting public trail access and high elevation wildlife habitat forever. We celebrated with the entire Moose Mountain Lodge family and many friends on a sunny Saturday in July.
  • Peter and Kay Shumway at table
    Peter and Kay Shumway after signing the Shumway Forest conservation easement, June 2017

    The lodge interior was even more wonderful than you imagine. Log ceiling beams, a sunny comfortable living room filled with rustic handmade log furniture, Kay’s baby grand piano, and drifts of hand-dyed wool for her spinning projects surrounded a huge cobblestone fireplace that featured a granite millstone above the hearth (more on that later). The dining room spanned the NW side, with another fireplace and a handmade dining table so long you can just imagine hungry guests gathering around it after a great day on skis. Behind was an efficient yet delightfully old-fashioned kitchen with everything close at hand, including Kay’s own Moose Mountain Lodge recipe book. On the N side was the ski shop with rows of skis hanging from a rack, ready for waxing.  A welcoming porch spanned the entire W side, with log settees beckoning you to relax and take in the breathtaking view and spectacular sunsets.

  • Up the stairs under the watchful eyes of a mounted moose head you’d find a warren of cozy guest rooms with log beds, some made by Kay and Peter themselves. Down the hill were a large fenced vegetable garden, goat shed (Kay kept Angora goats for their fleece), and small sugarhouse.
  • Now it’s time to enjoy some of the trails the Shumways and their former neighbor, Elisha Huggins, long maintained. Return to the path and continue uphill to a second, smaller clearing adorned by white birches. Follow the path back into the woods, guided by small wooden arrows. Soon you’ll arrive at a third pasture, the largest of all. Head uphill toward a moose sign with orange highlights posted on a birch.
  • These pastures, occasional clumps of juniper, and the fragments of barbed wire on fence posts recall the land’s history as the Dana Farm’s summering grazing grounds. The Dana family farmed this area since the late 1800s. Today, the red barn still stands on the E side of Old Dana Road and the early white farmhouse migrated from its original site across the way to the hilltop above. Into the 1960s, the family drove their cattle up the mountainside to graze here during the summer. After grazing stopped, Elisha Huggins kept the pastures open for skiing and views, using a hand scythe!
  • A low stone wall among the birches marks the boundary with private land. Continue S toward a large ash bearing an arrow pointing R. After a short downhill, another arrow + moose sign directs you to turn L. Take the path through the woods a short distance to a trail junction.
  • A sign at R, parallel to the trail, indicates the Orange Diamond Ridge Trail. Bear R and up a short steep section to a mossy ledge.
  • Ten minutes’ walk from the last pasture, you arrive at the first of two open ledges and views open up to the E. Keep an eye on kids and dogs. A small cairn on the far side marks the trail’s return to the woods.
  • Here, the Ridge Trail follows the boundary of two privately owned parcels – to the E is the Baum Conservation Area, owned by a local Dartmouth alumnus with a keen interest in trails and conservation. Pass a nice colony of the small but stoic rock polypody fern.
  • view of people on ledgeFive minutes from the first ledge, arrive at the second, larger ledge, today’s turn-around point. Time to corral kids and dogs and pull up a stony seat among the lowbush blueberries to drink in the view (and some water). At 1 o’clock is the bony knob of Mt. Cardigan. If you stand on the highest part of the ledge, you can see distant Mount Washington at 11 o’clock.
  • At 10 o’clock, the ridge of Moose Mountain stretches N beyond the communications tower. From here, you get a fine view of the mountain’s E profile and realize that, like Holt’s Ledge and so many others in New England, it is a roche moutonnee or sheepback, shaped by the passing of the glacier. The glacier abraded the NW side and plucked rocks from the opposite slope as it ground its way from NW to SE. In this view, dark patches of evergreens to the R of the tower mark the steep SE side.
  • To return, pink tape on a tree helps you locate the trail back. It becomes clear you’re hiking the very spine of this mountain, with the Mascoma River valley off at R and Mink Brook valley at L.
  • Returning to the first ledge, admire the view of Cardigan before continuing on, following a blue arrow.
  • At the trail junction, yellow signs point R to the Baum Conservation Area (to explore another day). You turn L to retrace your steps toward the pastures.
  • At a bent yellow birch, a sign at L directs you to turn R; shortly after you’ll turn L at another arrow. Soon you’re back to the birches and the upper Dana pasture. In June, white five-petaled strawberry flowers decorate the ground under your feet.
  • Continue gently downhill to the last pasture, above the site of the Lodge. See if you can spot the white hamlet of Hanover Center in the distance, to the R. You can see why this village never fulfilled its intended destiny as the hub of Hanover – it’s on a hilltop and there’s no running water!
  • Take the path back into the woods – avoid the trail that comes in at L from a private home – and return to Pasture Road. Turn L past the stone wall and then L again at the junction by the cellar hole. Ten minutes from the last overlook, you’re back at your car.

Optional Mill Site Visit (10 minutes)

  • mill ruins by streamHidden in the woods are remains of a late 1700s saw and grist mill. They are very close by but invisible unless you make the short scramble through the woods to see them.
  • Walk back down Moose Mountain Lodge Road to a telephone pole opposite the gated entrance to the tower right of way. Turn L and bushwhack back the short way to the stream. You’ll soon pick up an old cart path on the near side. Take this down along the brook, admiring the cascades, to a series of angular piles of rock. Towers rise on either side of the brook. More can be seen farther downstream.
  • We marvel at how David Woodward managed to build these structures in such a steep ravine around 1800, his only tools likely being a pair of sturdy oxen, ropes, a chisel, and a native understanding of physics. In his 1982 anthropology paper, Dartmouth student Tom Slocum suggests that Woodward used the cubic
  • blocks of native schist to build an undershot-type mill that most likely functioned to saw wood and grind grain. Water stored in the pond above could be released to provide enough flow to operate the mill. At some point in its history, the mill operated only during the spring freshet and only as a sawmill.
  • The 1930s builders of Moose Mountain Lodge found their fireplace ornament here amid the ruins of Woodward’s mills. These historic sites are now specifically protected from further disturbance by the Hanover Conservancy’s Mill Pond Forest conservation easement.
  • Continue down the brook-side cart path to the last set of ruins. The path appears to end here; retrace your steps to return to your car.

Revised 10/2020

Filed Under: Dana Pasture Lot, Easements, Hike of the Month, History, June, Mill Pond Forest/Huggins Trail Access, Moose Mountain, Views Tagged With: beaver, grist mill, wild strawberry

Shumway Forest and Tom Linnell Ridge Trail

August 1, 2017

Hike Information and map – full PDF

 

Moose Mountain trail mapDriving Directions

  • From Etna Village, head N on Hanover Center Road
  • Turn R on Ruddsboro Road and drive 1.8 miles
  • Turn L on Old Dana Road
  • Turn R just past large red barn on R, onto Moose Mountain Lodge Road (not marked)
  • Drive 0.8 miles to top of road. Park in marked trailhead parking area just past the beaver dam.

What You Should Know

  • Foot travel only. Dogs are welcome but must be under close control.
  • Consider bringing binoculars and a bird book for viewing waterfowl on Mill Pond.
  • This hike passes through six major conservation parcels on Moose Mountain that are part of a 3,800-acre block of protected, un-fragmented wildlife habitat. The newest and largest is the 313-acre Shumway Forest, conserved by the Hanover Conservancy in June 2017.

Hiking Directions

  • Begin your hike at the green Mill Pond Forest/Huggins Trail Access sign. The Huggins and Shumway families donated a conservation easement on this area in 2015 to ensure that the public would always be welcome on their trails and have a dedicated place to park.
  • The trail heads E along a beaver-managed section of Mink Brook – look for evidence of beaver chews, slides, and an impressive series of dams.
  • You’ll soon reach a fork; a big pine at R bears a sign for Pasture Road. Bear L on the other trail. You have arrived at the 130-acre Dana Pasture Natural Area, a wonderful piece of land that holds an important place in the Dana Family history. Today, the Town of Hanover and a Dana heir own undivided half shares.
  • 15 paces from the fork, look for a cellar hole at L. This was the home of miller David Woodward, who built the dam on Mill Pond and an impressive sawmill and gristmill on the steep falls of Mink Brook below where you left your car (a visit for another day).
  • Continue 75 yards to the pond’s edge and a bench that beckons you to admire the view across the 10-acre pond. This is the highest water body in the town of Hanover and the primary source of Mink Brook, the town’s largest stream. Set in a saddle on the mountain ridge, it may have originally been a small pond or perhaps a marsh. In the late 1700s, Woodward built a drylaid stone dam (just out of view at L, beyond the spruces) to raise the water level some 6-8 feet (it has since partly silted in). Then beavers took over and have been managing the pond ever since. Today, the entire shoreline remains undisturbed: Hanover Conservancy easements protect the N side with the Dana Pasture Natural Area on the S.
  • beavers in pondDirectly across from the bench is an impressive beaver lodge. Scan the pond’s surface for waterfowl and other birds. You might be welcomed by the slap of a beaver’s tail.
  • Retrace your steps for a short distance to the Pond Loop (unmarked) at L, and begin your trip around the pond. In 3 minutes, come to a Y with the Baboon Bypass at R and an arrow pointing L.
  • Turn L here, keeping the pond at L. You’ll encounter some wet places, an old corduroy (log) crossing, and lush growths of sphagnum moss, goldthread, and club moss.
  • About 10 minutes’ walk from the bench, you meet a massive old white birch and side trails to the water. Continue straight to another big birch and a large maple snag, an apartment house for a variety of creatures. The trail continues around them.
  • Just a few minutes later you’ll arrive at a trail junction, and you have a decision to make.
  • The arrow points L to the tower road. If you just remembered you left something on the stove, this is the first of two bail-out points. To return to your car, bear L on the Pond Loop, heading N. The trail is easy to follow if you keep the pond in view at L and bear R at an arrow. You’ll leave the Dana Pasture Natural Area for the Shumway Forest before you reach the tower road 10 minutes from your decision point. Turn L to return to your car in another 4 minutes.

  • If you’re game for more adventure, bear R toward the sign reading “To the O.D. Ridge Trail.” The Orange Diamond Trail was built by a local snowmobile club in the 1970s but hasn’t been used that way for years. The trail, deemed by the club as unsuitable for today’s snow machines, is now restricted to foot travel.
  • Thank the Hanover Conservation Commission’s Trails Committee for restoring this and the Tom Linnell Ridge Trail, which it joins in 4/10 mile. The trail sees heavier use in winter than summer, so follow it with care.
  • Continue on the Orange Diamond Trail as it heads northeast through mixed northern hardwoods for 20-25 minutes. Bear L at forks in the path. Soon you leave the Dana Pasture Natural Area, briefly visit the Shumway Forest, and enter two lots fully owned by the Town of Hanover. The Conservancy helped the Town acquire the N one in 2002. Didn’t notice a break in the forest, did you? Wildlife doesn’t either! That’s the point of keeping habitat un-fragmented here on the mountain.
  • This is prime habitat for the kinds of wildlife that need large blocks of cold mountain habitat, including the snowshoe hare. We’ve seen not only the tracks but the creature itself, a white blur whizzing across a whitened winter landscape, with a bobcat in pursuit. Sheltered rocky crevices provide fine bobcat dens.
  • As the Orange Diamond Trail joins the Tom Linnell Ridge Trail, bear L to head due N. The Hanover Conservancy is assisting the Upper Valley Trails Alliance and Hanover Trails Committee with their project to formalize and protect public access to the Ridge Trail for its entire route from Enfield to the South Peak, under a grant from the Quabbin to Cardigan Partnership.
  • 20-25 minutes from the Pond Loop, arrive at the tower “road,” which was visible at L for the last few minutes. Here’s your second bail-out point: you can walk down the road to the gate and turn L to your car.
  • The tower road was built in the 1960s for construction and maintenance of the nearby communications tower. Despite what a surprising number of maps say, it is NOT a public Class VI road that goes over the ridge to Goss Road, nor is it part of Moose Mountain Lodge Road. A private right of way, it is blocked by a locked gate just above the entry from the Lodge Road. Hanover Conservancy easements on its lower half prevent use by vehicles except for forestry, wildlife habitat management, and of course, by the tower folk.

  • We hope you’re up for more adventure – if so, cross the road at its hairpin turn and re-enter the woods at the sign of the moose. The Orange Diamond / Tom Linnell Ridge Trail is wide and easy to follow here.
  • In 3 minutes, the O’Brien Trail (named for the Shumways’ forester, John O’Brien) leaves at L. John has an endearing habit of arranging skid trails so they make good hiking and XC ski trails.
  • Stay straight; you’ll soon encounter evidence of federal boundary blazes as the trail begins to snake the line between the Shumway Forest and federal land acquired in the 1980s for the Appalachian Trail.
  • In 2 minutes, bear R at a fork and sign reading “To the A.T.” The trail becomes a narrow footpath again, easy to follow as it begins to climb along the boundary. Look for some old sugar maples whose nearness to the line may have spared them the woodman’s axe.
  • Soon you’ll get hints of views to the E (R) as the trail swings L and continues up, not blazed but easy to see.
  • dog at Moose Mountain view20 minutes from the tower road, arrive at the Appalachian Trail. An orange Dartmouth Outing Club sign rests on the ground by a tree, pointing the way to the South Peak. Here, you can turn R to head to Mt. Katahdin in Maine. Turn left for Velvet Rocks, downtown Hanover, and if you’re really ambitious, Springer Mountain in Georgia. Today, we’ll turn R and take the AT for about 15 minutes to the S summit along the well-worn, gently but steadily climbing path.
  • Relish your reward at the South Peak: glorious views E, with Goose Pond at your feet and Mt. Cardigan, Sunapee, Kearsarge, and more visible on the SE horizon. At one point, the Presidentials are visible in the distance to the NE. Bedrock ledges offer comfortable seating. Search the raspberry thicket for ripe berries. You can bet the bears do.
  • steeplebush
  • At this season, native steeplebush is in full bloom (L), its rosy spires of tiny flowers alive with native pollinators. Dragonflies cruise the peaceful scene today, but in 1968, Northeast Airlines flight 946 crashed near this area. The rescue effort required bulldozers to clear a path to the wreckage.
  • The orange DOC sign indicates that the South Peak’s elevation is 2222’ above sea level. More refined measurements indicate it’s actually 73’ higher.
  • When you’re done drinking in the view, head back down the AT the way you came. The junction for the O.D. Ridge Trail appears just after a raised log/stone section of trail. Enter the Shumway Forest once again and continue down the AT past this trail. Volunteer AT trail maintainers have been here – step over rock water bars that keep water from sluicing down the trail and creating gullies.
  • About 8 minutes from the O.D. Ridge Trail junction, the trail flattens out – your cue to look for the Logging Road entering at L. Find the trail sign mounted on a large paper birch a short way in.
  • Turn L here, off the AT (if you continued, you’d arrive at Three Mile Road). You’re passing through a “sandwich” of easements placed by the National Park Service in 1983. A 200’ Trail Right of Way Easement follows the AT itself with a pair of protective easements 200-461’ wide, one on each side of the Trail ROW.
  • The Logging Road heads briefly uphill and then follows the contour S. You will follow it for half an hour through the Shumway Forest. This is your best chance at seeing moose that use this trail as a highway. Watch for their dinner plate-sized tracks in a few wet areas that appear here and there.
  • About 9 minutes from the AT, the Picnic Trail comes in at L. Ferny openings indicate the Logging Road’s path SSW. A few minutes further at a small opening, bear L and the trail, now more clearly a former skid trail, leads on.
  • Note the carefully constructed water bars on the route, built for past years’ logging operations to control water flow. Brush piles were laid to help return nutrients to the soil and provide small mammal habitat. The Shumway Forest has been under the supervision of a professional forester ever since the current owners, Kay and Peter Shumway, purchased what was then a heavily logged property in 1986 from a timber company to prevent construction of a mountaintop vacation home by another would-be buyer.
  • The Shumways manage the land primarily for public recreation and also to steer the forest back to a healthy and ecologically intact system with a variety of habitats for wildlife while protecting streams and wetlands. The new conservation easement ensures that this management will continue, adding a 100’ protective buffer for those waters.
  • About 20 minutes from the AT, the Bear Cub Trail comes in at L and soon you arrive at a grassy log landing. Bear L, away from the large open area, and continue up into the woods. Wildlife feed in such openings surrounded by forest cover. The Logging Road becomes stony here, hardened to take the weight of forestry vehicles. You’re starting to think this might be a wonderful ski route in winter, and you’re right!
  • In 4 minutes the Middle Mountain Trail and Mountainside Trail leave at R, and in a few more, you arrive at a second log landing. Just beyond is the tower road. Signs on a tree at L include a trail map. Turn R on the tower road.
  • Now it’s time to explore the north shore of Mill Pond. Two minutes from the Logging Road, the pond comes into view as you leave the Shumway Forest and enter the Mill Pond Forest, where the Shumways and Hugginses donated a conservation easement to the Hanover Conservancy in 2015.
  • Mill Pond with beaver lodgeTurn L opposite a telephone pole and take the short trail to the water’s edge. The beaver lodge is close by, and the bench you visited earlier is visible on the far shore at 2 o’clock. Lush northern shoreline vegetation is underfoot: sphagnum moss, ferns, and lichens. This thick carpet captures sediment running off the mountainside and helps keep Mink Brook crystal clear.
  • Turn R to follow the path along the shore, crossing a few beaver slides, noting the reeds with their tousled “bad hair day” seedheads. At a fork in the path, stay L on the pine-needle carpeted trail to where a small cove indicates the old dam overflow. The dam is just beyond, obscured by beaver engineering and shrubs.
  • Bear R and head for the green gate at the entrance to the tower road. Turn downhill past the gate and L to return to your car.

The Hanover Conservancy holds permanent conservation easements on the Shumway Forest, Mill Pond Forest, and Huggins Trail Access, which remain privately owned. Please respect the generosity of these landowners by leaving no trace of your visit and enjoy the memories and photographs you take home.

Filed Under: August, Hike of the Month, Moose Mountain, Shumway Forest Tagged With: Appalachian Trail, beaver, snowshoe hare, steeplebush

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71 Lyme Road
Hanover, NH 03755
(603) 643-3433

info@hanoverconservancy.org

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