Friends of Pisgah, Inc

Wantastiquet to Madame Sherri's Hike

The first of nine (9) hikes in 2018 to introduce the public to the 50 mile Wantastiquet to Monadnock Trail was held on a beautiful April 21 Saturday morning.  Over 30 hikers trekked up the west side of Mt. Wantastiquet, across Mine Mountain, lunched at Indian Pond and descended to the Madame Sherri parking lot.  There they were transported back to their vehicles at the Wantastiquet trailhead via van provided by the Chesterfield Conservation Commission.

Spring Clean Up in Pisgah State Park

Spring clean up in Pisgah State Park will get underway on Saturday, April 21 at 9 a.m. at Horseshoe Road trailhead in Chesterfield. Join Friends of Pisgah volunteers to help remove debris from the trails, clear leaves from drainage ditches, cut away blowdowns, and generally spruce up some of the great 13,000-acre park that is the gem of southwestern New Hampshire.

So, take an aspirin for that hangover, put down the extra doughnut, and do something that shall benefit all who come this way to enjoy one of the Granite State's not-so-small wonders. Come join us Friends of Pisgah volunteers to improve the wild park we have come to love.

Bring a snack or a lunch, plenty of water, gloves, and hand tools. We'll provide tools aplenty, too.

Fourth Annual Run in the Park

MARK YOUR CALENDAR if you love woods trail running and 5k and 10k races in a remarkable forested and water-filled world such as Pisgah State Park in Southwestern New Hampshire.

The Friends of Pisgah all-volunteer trails maintenance group is sponsoring its fourth annual RUN IN THE PARK on Saturday, May 26th. Race time is 9:00, earlier than last year, at the Horseshoe Trailhead parking lot.

The first 100 folks who register get a Run In The Park T-shirt.  All runners get a free Friends of Pisgah membership for a year..

1/20/2018 Pisgah Workday

WE ICED IT. Today, Saturday the 20th, nine Friends of Pisgah souls moved enough materials over the Kilburn Loop Trail and Kilburn Pond to build two foot bridges, one that will be 22-feet in length and the other 24-feet long. The materials are to be assembled into spans in the spring on the soon to the formally brushed out John Summers Trail on the eastern side of Kilburn Pond. On our Facebook page we see folks moving on ATV machines with hauling sleds attached and volunteers pulling lumber from the sleds and piling the material where it will be readily accessible in two different locations. Despite some logistical difficulties while moving half a ton of material up icy hills, the work was completed in six hours. Not a bad day's work.

First Day Hike in Pisgah State Park

The Friends of Pisgah and the NH Department of Parks and Recreation hosted the first ever First Day Hike held at Pisgah State Park on Monday, January 1, one of the coldest days in the last decade. That did not stop folks from attending. Fully 71 brave souls registered for the event and came out to hike the Doolittle Trail, roast marshmallows and S'mores over a bonfire, and even get a chance to watch several teams of sled dogs chomp at the bit to get running.

Our Facebook page contains a sample batch of photos that are the first of several we will post over the next few days. If you have a photo or two you would like to share, by all means post to this Friends of Pisgah page. Next year, it will be your turn to come out, unless the ice cap glaciers advance and cover New England once again.

Kilburn Loop 12/9/2017 Work

Six volunteers spent the day (Saturday) working on the refurbished segment of the 5.5-mile Kilburn Loop Trail on the west side of Kilburn Pond. They handworked drainage ditches, cleared culverts, hauled material to build up the very last feet of fill on the trail, cleared a massive blow down at the head of the spur trail to the Kilburn Pond dam, added forest duff to the margins of the trail in some places, pulled up and hauled out all but one section of silt fence (that last one will remain until spring), and more. Toward the end of the day, the snow began to fall, putting a nice touch on the last work on the trail for the year.

Wantastiquet-Monadnock Trail

Click on a attachment below to view either

To go through Keene on the WM Trail:  Take a left out of the Horatio Colony parking lot (Daniels Hill Road).  Take a right on Whitcomb's Mill Road (1st right). Carefully cross Route 9, staying on Whitcomb's Mill Road. In a couple of hundred yards you will get to the Cheshire Rail Trail, take a right and follow through Keene.  There are descriptive signs at the parking lot, at the Rail Trail intersection and at Island Street in Keene.  The purpose of these is to help you through Keene as the bike path is poorly signed and there are no posts or trees on which to post our signs. We will eventually have proper maps for these sections but there are still possibilities for adjusting the route.

The east end of the bike path merges with Eastern Ave. - take a right on Eastern Ave. and a quick left on Marlborough St.  Take Marlborough Street to the end and carefully cross Route 9.  Continue on the rail line to Troy where you pick up the MM Trail over Gap Mt. to Monadnock.  Both west of Keene and east of Keene the blue and white diamonds mark the trail.

Tom Duston

Friends Annual Meeting November 14th

Kilburn Project Complete

The large project to restore the Kilburn parking lot, the Kilburn access road, and the western side of the Kilburn Loop Trail by Kilburn Pond is now complete. All equipment is gone, the trail, road, and parking lot have been graded, raked, and chain-dragged to create a rather smooth and walkable surface. It is now incumbent upon Friends of Pisgah volunteers to help "soften" the road and trail by doing handwork. That process has begun and will continue until the hiking season begins in earnest in late spring.

FOP Trail Clearing – November 8-13, 2017

Friends of Pisgah crews were in the park four days in the past week cutting trees and clearing trails after the high winds the week before.