Crotched Mountain hiking trails closed?

The family and I drove up to Crotched Mountain to hike Shannon's Trail to the radio tower. We got there and found that seemingly all the trails were closed to prepare the land for blueberry farming, or something along those lines.

There were signs indicating that Shannon's Trail was closed, but please try our accessible trail (I forget the trail's name). But the sign on that trail indicated it was also closed.

I couldn't find anything on the web about it. Anyone know what's going on, and if the trails will be reopened this spring?

I'd be interested in the answer to this

Does anybody have any further information?

I last hiked Crotched last fall and was unaware of this. I was able to find another reference to it HERE (scroll partway down to Feb 7th entry) and it also shows a bypass route. The Dutton Brook trail is the 1st 1 mile section of a 4 mile wheelchair accessible path being built by the CMRC, according to their site. No reference to how long Shanon's will be closed.

That site was useful, thanks. I should have taken a photo of the signs for reference.

This past weekend, the other "trail closed" sign at the parking area was for the Dutton Brook Accessible trail. So there was no place to hike from the parking area. The trail map linked from gonewengland.org seems to indicate that trails might be accessible from the road in other spots. I didn't see these, but I didn't look very hard either.

jrichard said:

Thetrail map linked from gonewengland.org seems to indicate that trails might be accessible from the road in other spots. I didn't see these, but I didn't look very hard either.

Click to expand...

That was a cropped version of this map published by the Francestown ConCom on the Town's official website. This uncropped version shows the parking area for access from the SE. I have not checked it out, but there are detailed descriptions of all these trails in the new (3d) edition of the AMC So. NH Trail Guide, which is also where I learned about this map.

I have an old David Hodgdon map that shows 2 trails from the N (one in the woods I have hiked plus one up the pole line), not sure what their status is or how the ski area feels about hiking.

I've hiked in from the trailhead on Route 136 and doing the loop using the Link Trail, Summit East Trail and Summit West Trail a couple of times now. Nice little loop. Around 3 miles and change. I don't remember the exact distance, but I've got it written down at home. Beautiful views in the fall from up there. The summit using that loop doesn't get close to the ski areas, so that can be avoided.

Ted Bonner cut many of the more recent (late 90's- early 00's) trails with people/pet names, older/traditional trails exist(ed). He used to have some basic maps/guides to various hikes in the region for sale in some local book and village stores.

Dick Jenkins often descibed hikes on Crotched in his outdoor column in the Monadnock Shopper News. Surry Cottage Books recently published a compilation of many of these articles under the title "Monadnock Region Odysseys". There may be some good info there on Crotched, but I could not view a table of contents on google books or the publishers website.

Spoke with a friend on the Francestown ConCom on Wednesday about the closures- they are temporary for forest and scrub management to boost the blueberry growth. He also mentioned that these berry bushes are a strain that is considered to be the first hybrid strain ever developed.