The Cohos Trekker Newsletter

Well, the season is winding down and now this issue of the trekker is late! Sorry about that. It is probably best that we cut the trekker back to every three months or so till hiking season starts back up. There won't be a whole lot of news during this slow time.

We are beyond peak foliage up here and the bird hunters are now out and about. The bull moose are coming into full rut and are becoming quite unpredictable.

It was brought to my attention by the state parks that some hikers have stayed at Coleman State Park without paying. Please be honest and help us to keep the good relationship we have with the state.

Work is winding down on the trails. We have had a considerable amount of rain during the last month and now they are predicting snow for tomorrow. (Oct 12) I for one, am not ready for snow.

If anyone would like to adopt a trail, please get in touch with us sometime over the winter and we will set you up. There are many trails available, especially here in the north country.

We are again soliciting donations. We are looking to rebuild Kamp Kirk in Nash Stream to increase capacity and repair the floor in the Mtn Bungalow. Both of these shelters will be available to hikers for donations only. The Mtn. Bungalow has seen much use this year and was enjoyed by all.

PS We are still looking for people willing to help us open up new trails and knock down the grasses. Anyone interested, please get in touch with us.

See you on the Trail

Pete Castine

President

The Cohos Trail Association

THE COHOS TREKKER - by K. R. Nilsen

HELLO FROM THE COHOS TRAIL

COLD FUSION

Snow has been falling on high ground above 3,500 feet for weeks now, and recently it moved into the valleys. Some towns in the North Country received two and three inches of snow in the last week. For those who love hiking in cool weather, and who revel in new views now that most of the leaves have fallen, October is a great time to be out on the Cohos Trail. But you have to be ready for any and all conditions. You need to take along substantial cold weather gear.

Snow in October is common in these ancient hills, of course. We completed the Baldhead lean-to some years ago while snow fell. The first time I hiked into Fourth Connecticut Lake, I trekked in wet snow on the second day of October. And I've stood on The Horn on the last day of summer making footprints in a dusting of snow. And, least we forget, two Appalachian Mountain Club board of directors members died on the Crawford Path in August more than a generation ago. Such are the vagaries of weather in the mountains of the Granite State.

CLEAN SWEEP

On the first weekend of October, ten people came out to volunteer or check out the goings-on at Kamp Kirk in the Nash Stream Forest. In a few days, we were able to make some modest improvements to the 100-year-old labor camp, a building originally hammered together to house workers who constructed the Nash Bog Dam (which washed out in 1969).

At the very least, we hope to be able to use the camp, owned by John Lane of Lancaster, New Hampshire, as a maintenance depot, so that trail crews working in and around the Nash Stream Forest can use the facility as a staging area for trail projects. Sometime in the future, we'd like to be able to restore the building and the attendant shed well enough so that it could be used as a small, self-service hiker hut that would be free to the recreating public. But we'll need permission from the state to do such a thing. We've sent along a plan to state officials. We'll see what transpires over the winter. There's no rush. Unless we can find a sponsor who would like to underwrite the $15,000 to $20,000 cost to fully restore the historic building, we'd have to self-fund it a little at a time, and that might take years.

Over the weekend, we carried out a dozen different projects. Jack Pepau of Stark helped us move a prefabricated composting latrine up to the camp. Jack and Bob Paradise of Stark worked all day setting up the post foundation and assembling the little structure, which was originally designed and cut out by Jack's son, Chad, five years ago. I can report that the little latrine is standing. It looks good, but the composting cage must be built over the winter and installed next spring. Then it will be ready for use.

Yvan Guay of Jefferson secured the big deteriorating shed by adding some roof material and a large tarp to temporarily stop the structure from leaking. We'll put some more effort into it next year. Yvan and his dad, Lionel, shoveled a great deal of fill into the driveway to improve traction. Yvan also created a small parking area by removing a few saplings and adding fill to a flat area below the camp. On top of that, Yvan brought a big grill and cooked hotdogs and hamburgers for lunch for everyone. There were no complaints. No sir.

MtnMagic of Lancaster brought a eight-ton-rated jack and jack stands and helped lift up the south and west sides of the building. With his help we were able to install temporary sills to stablize the camp. Percy Peaks from the flatlands dug trenches under the building to facilitate the jacking work and to permit the building's under-structure to breath and dry out.

John Lane shoveled the considerable piles of excavated earth into a wheelbarrow and rolled the fill to an embankment and spread it out to smooth out the pitch.

The entire building was cleaned from top to bottom. By the time it was complete an entire pickup truck was filled to the brim with materials and refuse that went to a transfer station for disposal. The grounds around the building were also cleaned, the grass cut, and the place raked. A fir tree growing against the porch was taken down, limbed, and bucked up, as well. That let a bit more light reach the building, and its removal will allow the north side of the building to dry out faster after a rain.

The woodstove pipes were cleaned and secured so that we could keep a fire going in the building most of each day. The interior configuration of the furnishings was changed around a bit to allow more room and space to maneuver. A trouble spot in the floor was patched, too.

The kitchen wing roof received a tarp to stop a leak up there. We'll try to do something a bit more permanent next year. The porch had received some attention six weeks earlier, but it was organized a bit more.

Quite a bit of donated material made it up to the site, other than the latrine. Yvan brought a large crank-out window, which we stored upstairs for the time being. He brought an exterior door, as well. Percy Peaks brought in a number of sizable 4"x7" timbers. They were stored under the building. He brought some plywood for the shed and some odd 2x4s and planks for a puncheon bridge rebuild on the East Side Trail (see related copy below).

Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Chaput of Twin Mountain made the trek the nine miles up the Nash Stream Road to see how we were progressing. Ray has hiked the Cohos Trail twice, once northbound, once southbound. Several dogs ogled us, as well.

All in all, the work weekend was very productive. We did what we set out to do. Next spring, we'll tackle a few more things. Here's a few of thing tasks we'd like to undertake, not that we'll get them all done.

First, we'd like to do a little excavating and pour permanent concrete piers under the south and west walls and a portion of the north wall. That would permit us to run permanent sills and then put in place three piers for a new, slightly larger kitchen area and two piers for a new and little bigger porch. With new piers and new sills, the building could then get some new floor joists and some other much needed structural improvements.

Certainly, we'd rebuild the porch from scratch. If we are fortunate to raise a few thousand dollars for the purpose, we would tear down the dilapidated kitchen and replace it with all new materials. We might not be able to finish it fully, but at least we'd have it closed in and waterproof.

The existing shed would get a complete rebuild. It's in terrible shape and needs to be replaced. We'd tip-up telephone pole lengths and create a pole shed with a plank floor, board siding and a metal roof. We have most of the materials on site right now for the job. We'd just have to get it done. And because the shed would have a floor, and because it would be divided into sections, a portion of it could be used like a lean-to for volunteers who come into the valley to work on trails. If we get the okay, we might open the lean-to section to hikers and others on the Cohos Trail.

The latrine will get its composting cage and a metal bucket with lid to contain peat moss, the stuff that makes the whole composting process work. More fill could be brought in for the driveway and the parking spot. A few pickup loads would do it.

In the interior of the building, we'd add a good deal of vertical framing timber and shore up the main carrying timbers and second floor joists. In short, we'd make the camp much more rigid and much stronger. We'd add the donated window to the upper floor and add a few more windows to the lower south wall to let lots of light into the place.

That would be about all we could accomplish next year, I believe, unless, you, the reader, would like to provide a substantial gift so that we could purchase a good deal more materials. Then who knows what we could do.

READY TO ROLL

In 2010, we should be able to accomplish a lot more than a bit of work on Kamp Kirk. A host of new trails have been laid out in Pittsburg (and some footage cut), including the Prospect Mt. Trail, the Covell Mt. Trail, the Round Pond Brook Trail, the Camp Otter Trail, and the Moose Alley Trail. We hope to be able to open a number of these before hiking season begins.

Much of the Prospect Mt. Trail is cut. It is awaiting one last landowner okay. Then the trail can be opened through from Mountain Bungalow over the mountain, with its super view, and down to Ramblewood Cabins and Campground. The Camp Otter Trail is missing only its big puncheon bridge span, about 150 feet of it. The materials are now on site. They just have to be installed in the spring. And about two-thirds of the Moose Alley Trail is cut. That needs a puncheon span about half the length of the Camp Otter Trail. The Covell Mt. and Round Pond Brook Trail are fully designed, flagged and awaiting the green light.

And, if we are fortunate, we may be able to resolve an access issue in the Big Brook area so that we can punch through what will be one of the finer trails in the region, the Little Falls in the River Trail between Big Brook and Second Connecticut Lake Dam. And, finally, at the end of 2010, we hope to have the Logging Camp Trail between Second Lake Dam and East Inlet flagged and, perhaps, even cut and swept. If we can do that, then we'd have a fully realized trail from Notchland in Crawford Notch all the way to the Canadian border.

All that would be needed after that would be to restore the Deer Mountain Trail up the mountain of the same name behind Third Connecticut Lake, and put in a short puncheon span in a low spot a little to the north. The Cohos Trail would then be complete as envisioned more than a dozen years ago. That would be worth celebrating.

A FEW SHORT TAKES

MtnMagic and Percy Peaks replaced a broken puncheon on the south end of the East Side Trail around Nash Bog in the Nash Stream Forest. They made a few other minor improvements out the way out. They noted that Fish & Game had completed some trout habitat restoration work in Nash Stream, a brook that had been degraded when the Nash Bog Dam blew out in 1969 and the 200-acre lake drained into the valley in a matter of hours. Anglers should like the new pools created by heavy equipment to give trout suitable spawning environments.

It appears that Pondicherry Wildlife Refuge may expand by more than 400 acres by spring. That would bring the total acreage up to somewhere near 6,000 acres in the reserve, one of the more critical wildlife habitats in all the state. For those who have never trekked out to the observation platform on big Cherry Pond, it's well worth the effort.

A half mile reroute of the Sanguinary Summit Trail will get scouted next year. We'd like to be able to move folks off the wet mid-flank region of the mountain and place the trail more toward the ridgeline.

Noble Reliable Energy appears to have jumped most of the hurtles for the development of more than thirty 400-foot wind turbine towers on the eastern flank of the Phillips Brook Valley, from Owlhead Mountain in the south to Dixville Peak in the north. At Baldhead Mountain and particularly on Dixville Peak, hikers will be in fairly close proximity to the great revolving blades of the windmills.

It is remarkable how many times the headwaters forest lands have been sold and resold over the past decade. The former Champion International tracts, primarily in Pittsburg and Clarksville, have just changed hands again. This means the lands have actually been in different hands (investment portfolios) five times in a decade. Fortunately, the state now owns easements on those lands, and they will remain forested. And about 25,000 acres are in forever-wild easements, islands of habitat that will revert to old growth forest and become spawning grounds for indigenous flora and fauna that thrive in such now rare old-growth ecosystems.

DEVELOPING A "DESTINATION TRAIL"

What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of hiking in the East? The Appalachian Trail? Probably. Out West? Pacific Crest Trail, most likely. And why not, they are gold standard of foot trails.

There are literally scores of fine but much less lengthy trail systems than those two listed above here in the U.S. Most of us would be hard pressed to name more than a few. Most, like the Cohos Trail, are fine pathways in their own right, but they struggle to find funds for maintenance each year and strain to capture the public's eye.

Sometimes, when the barred owls call across the valley in the depths of the night, I get up and ponder how to make the Cohos Trail a destination trail, a path that people think of first when they want to lace up the hiking boots and stretch the legs for a hundred miles. I could have better things to think of, I suppose, but my mind hasn't got the capacity any longer, sort of like the inch worm on the edge of the cup going round and round and round for days until it dies of dehydration.

What could make the Cohos Trail numero uno, eh? I've ponder this a good deal and will continue to do so. And I could always use fresh ideas from people fresher than I. But here are a few thoughts:

A. Covered Bridges

New England is blessed with fine covered bridges from little Happy Corner bridge in Pittsburg to the great Cornish to Windsor multiple-span across the Connecticut River. But who builds covered bridges on foot trails? Nobody! But why not? Covered bridges last four and five times longer that open-air bridges. They cost more to build but are infinitely less expensive to maintain in both time, materials, and labor.

Imagine the Cohos Trail with four or five or more six-foot-wide covered bridges in strategic locations. What if there were a span across the Israel River just a quarter mile north of the Col. Whipple Trail trailhead? How about a covered bridge to replace the Rowells Brook bridge in the Nash Stream Forest, or a covered span across Pike Brook north of Nash Bog. A covered bridge below Huntington Falls might be just the thing. How about one from the Lake Francis Trail over the Connecticut to Lake Francis Campground? That would be no small structure and no small expense either. Or maybe one at Big Brook to link the future Moose Alley and Little Falls in the River Trails.

People love covered bridges and go out of their way to see them and walk across them. No reason not to do the same on a trail. $1,000 in materials would be all that's needed on smaller spans, each built atop big squared tree trunks affixed to stone or concrete piers. Spans across rivers, though, would be too much to ask a small trail association to undertake, no doubt.

B. Observation decks or towers

On Mont Gosford in Quebec stands a wooden observation platform, tall enough to permit the viewer to peer over the tops of summit trees and obtain a 360-degree view of the planet.

Along the route of the Cohos Trail, there use to be five firetowers that, for a time, were magnets for folks visiting the mountains, magnets like Magalloway Mt. tower is in Pittsburg or the stone monolith atop Mt. Prospect in Lancaster is to this very day. Cherry Mt. (Mt. Martha) had a tower in place a generation ago, Mt. Cabot, too. Sugarloaf Mt. in Nash Stream Forest has a bald summit, and a fire watchman cabin was anchored there until the mid-70s. Dixville Peak, too, hosted a tower of its own and could sorely use one again. And Deer Mt. tower in Pittsburg had its steel superstructure in place as long as I can remember. It may still be there today, for all I know.

Did I say people love firetowers? Seventy people showed up a few years ago to volunteer to hand carry materials up Vermont's Mt. Monadnock above Colebrook village so that the stairway to the tower cab could be restored fully. The job got done in a weekend.

If events in this world were up to me (damn good thing they aren't), I'd erect a new two-story enclosed tower atop Dixville Peak to gain the fantastic view that that summit affords. And I'd restore to Deer Mountain the fabled tower there, once made of logs and later of steel, that commanded a view of three states and much of southern Quebec as far north as the St. Lawrence River.

Maybe local schools could get involved in such a project, and local snowmobile clubs, too. Make it a joint venture. Make it fun and educational, too. Make it real, tangible, and dramatic as the same time. Restore to northern Coos its sensational vistas by building towers or raised platforms that people just have to visit.

C. A 162-mile interpretive trail

The history of Coos County is writ large in its forests, streams, lakes, valleys and small towns and single little city. It's an absolutely fascinating history, from the ghosts of paleo-American peoples who crisscrossed the region with the seasons to the felling of the forests in a single generation in the late 1800s, to the log drives, to the rise of the grand resort hotels, and so forth.

The mountains have tales to tell. The animals and plants could speak. We could tell all of it with fine graphic interpretive signage placed strategically along the route of the grand wild trail we call the Cohos. It would read like a novel. What a plot! Better than video games in a Milford apartment. Or maybe the signs would kill off the sense of wildness about the region. You decide.

That's three ideas. There are more. But.another time.

THE LAST WORD

With the closing of the Ethan Allen furniture factory in Beecher Falls, Vermont and the lose of many hundreds of jobs in the Upper Connecticut River Valley region of Coos County, there appears to be no year-round employer of any real scale remaining north of Route 110 between Groveton and Berlin.

Family farm agriculture (the region's largest employer 100 years ago) is now virtually nonexistent, manufacturing has largely collapsed or moved away, satellite service businesses that supported the mills have waned, woods jobs have dwindled to scratch as single-operator total-tree harvesters have become the norm, retail suffers from the loss of paychecks on the street, and the new energy economy will largely bypass Coos citizens, as very few jobs are created by the burning of forest biomass to create electricity rather than, say, wood fuel pellets that could at least be used to heat local homes.

Even tourist dollars, ever so tightly joined at the hip to the price of gasoline, are a one-dollar price hike at the pump away from being eroded away. We saw $4.00 plus gas prices just 15 months ago. And you and I know where present prices are headed over the coming decade, as global oil reserves, already past peak production now, begin to a steady decline while at the same time that world demand, particularly from China and India, steadily increases. Imagine a return to $4.25 a gallon gasoline. Or $5.00. Or $6.00. Distribution of goods into the region will falter as distributors one by one decide they can't justify the cost of delivering goods over long distances to service few customers. Sky high diesel price will cripple local trucking and heavy equipment operators. Those who have been forced by lack of employment to commute to Littleton or St. Johnsbury will trade hourly wages for gasoline. The impact on Coos, in fact on all of rural America, is likely to be wrenching.

The Cohos Trail is a foot trail, of course, but even those who love to hike have just so many dollars to spend. You'd think that people recreating on foot would be immune to increased costs of driving to hike. But big jumps in gasoline prices (and therefore everything else that is dependent on gasoline), will certainly mean that many people will decide to travel less distances to a trailhead to hike. We saw that in the summer of 2008, and so did many others who manage trails. I can't imagine what the impact of sustained high gas prices would be on the snowmobiling, ATVing, and boating enthusiasts and the hotel and motel owners and restaurants and suppliers that cater to them. And those pastimes generate big revenues for the coffers of the state of New Hampshire.

Healthy rural economies were always built on the four stout legs of an economic stool: family farming, local small industry, cheap energy, and communications. Across the rural landscape of America, three of the four of these legs are atrophying quickly or are threatened, and the fourth, communications, such as universal high speed internet access, has yet to be fully realized.

I chose long ago to live in a rural environment, even though I was brought up in a quiet backwater suburb of New York City. All my adult life I have taken pleasure in the million-acre forest of Coos County, and tramped its scores of peaks and hills. The Cohos Trail is the result of my wanderings. When I first arrived, dairy farms dotted the intervales and to a lesser extent the hills, big muscled industries hummed alongside the rivers, freight trains shuttled up and down the county day and night, hundreds of workers labored in the woods, and business was done by telephone and typewriter.

Today, most all of that has passed into history due to a host of converging forces: U.S. economic policies over the last 30 years, the rise of huge economies such as Japan, China and India, the off-shoring of countless manufacturing jobs (drive across Ohio or Michigan sometime. Whew!) to access cheap labor, the uncertain energy outlook, the scaling up of mass industries (such as agribusiness giants) elsewhere, and technological advances that have made other industries obsolete.

How do we rural folks reassemble that four legged-stool that once offered a firm seat for our rural fannies? We are going to need to know how to feed ourselves in the future utilizing local soils. You can count on it when the bread baker in Portland decides at $4.50 a gallon it won't ship its bread to Lancaster or Colebrook any longer, and the price of a head of lettuce runs north of $5.00. We are going to need to know industrial skills that are being lost. How does a local business machine a spare part for something if there is no one left who can show how its done and no metal lathes are in working order? We are going to have to change and change quickly how we get around from point to point, or we won't get around much.

The heavy work that has to be done isn't going to come from a government that will be increasingly hard pressed to pay its bills or from a think tank in Washington or Berkeley. Industry of scale is not going to appear on the horizon. The hard work will be grassroots work, done by local citizens determined to stay put in the local rural communities they love. It will require the resurrection of a local, much more self-reliant culture more in keeping with the 19th century than the 21st century, I think, when small farms and small business run by local people to serve local markets were ubiquitous. It will have to be so. Energy prices and seismic global economic shifts of the future will demand grassroots change at the local level and the rise of close-knit, self-reliant communities, or rural economies everywhere across the U.S. will fade to black.

Percy Peaks