Jazzbo
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- Jan 1, 2005
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Looking for something short and simple on Sunday, I traveled the Church Pond Loop on 7/8/07. Church Pond Loop is accessed from the Passaconaway Campground off of the Kancamangus Highway. The entire loop totals about 2.3 miles RT. It was cloudy with low clouds. The trail passes through some very nice White Pine and Spruce woods. Many of the pines were good size and growing. The pines hopefully will be left to grow to become the giants that this area is capable of growing. I made it to the island of glacial till that lies between the swamp and Church Pond. It was nice to see numerous young tamarack trees getting established in the bog area.
Where the trail passes though bogs the plant life closes in on the trail. The plants were wet from recent rains and treated me to a car wash. My wallet got almost totally soaked and I transferred it to my rain jacket pocket. Teva sandles I was wearing came in handy for crossing the Swift River. I wore them for the whole hike. Swift River is braided in this area and has two crossings right after trail starts. I met a twosome rebooting at first crossing. If only they knew they were going to have to deboot in 100 yards or so. The river is sandy with no rocks to rockhop acorss on.
I was optimisticly hoping to see some moose, but only saw a shy, but curious deer who craned his neck to get a better look at me. I might have snuck up closer to him to get a better look if the mosquitos would have left me alone. I finally had to swat at them and off he dashed in great leaps with his white tail bobbing up and down.
The bog bridges were mostly in an advanced state of decay. I intended to do the loop in counterclockwise direction, but decided to come back the way I came because I was concerned I might encounter some obstacle 2/3 of the way around and have to return the way I came. That's how bad the bog bridges were. About 1/3 of trail mileage appears to be bog bridges. The bog bridges are certainly in need of replacement. I took a lot of repetitive pictures of the bog bridges in the vent some trail adopter or forest service person wants to assess the conditions of this trail. There were maybe 10 minor blowdowns along trail to pond, but none were hard to step over or around.
Pics are here.
Where the trail passes though bogs the plant life closes in on the trail. The plants were wet from recent rains and treated me to a car wash. My wallet got almost totally soaked and I transferred it to my rain jacket pocket. Teva sandles I was wearing came in handy for crossing the Swift River. I wore them for the whole hike. Swift River is braided in this area and has two crossings right after trail starts. I met a twosome rebooting at first crossing. If only they knew they were going to have to deboot in 100 yards or so. The river is sandy with no rocks to rockhop acorss on.
I was optimisticly hoping to see some moose, but only saw a shy, but curious deer who craned his neck to get a better look at me. I might have snuck up closer to him to get a better look if the mosquitos would have left me alone. I finally had to swat at them and off he dashed in great leaps with his white tail bobbing up and down.
The bog bridges were mostly in an advanced state of decay. I intended to do the loop in counterclockwise direction, but decided to come back the way I came because I was concerned I might encounter some obstacle 2/3 of the way around and have to return the way I came. That's how bad the bog bridges were. About 1/3 of trail mileage appears to be bog bridges. The bog bridges are certainly in need of replacement. I took a lot of repetitive pictures of the bog bridges in the vent some trail adopter or forest service person wants to assess the conditions of this trail. There were maybe 10 minor blowdowns along trail to pond, but none were hard to step over or around.
Pics are here.
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