It's what became known as Smitty's Trail. It's a nice enough trail as it heads generally south out of Jericho and negotiates over a ridge. But as it drops towards Gorham and connects to the old truck road that is Corridor 16 (snomo trail), it runs down a very steep slope quite a way where they had to cut the side-hill. This was just after the trail was first cut and I'm remembering now that I think I was with the White Mt. Ridgerunners trailmaster who was driving the groomer, with me terrified in the passenger seat. Always fun when you are tugging along over a ton of metal and snow behind you that wants to slide sideways down the hill. I rode this trail one other time on a snowmachine, as I would sometimes ride out of Moose Brook State Park up to the warming hut in Jericho in order to shovel the snow out of the outhouse and clean it. The trail made me nervous, and I often had concern towards some individuals I knew were using it (like the family with young children asking the quickest way to ride back to Gorham late in the day). At that early point the trail was not so much cut and ditched into the side-hill, but more just plastered to the slope and heavily pitched.
The only other available direct trail route to Gorham was the only original route between Gorham and Berlin (Jericho) is the old railbed on the east side. But this involves negotiating roadways in Berlin that is not always preferred by riders, despite this being the hope of Berlin businesses and part of the design. The current route through the woods, heads north out of Gorham behind Pike Industries on an old logging truck road that is the superhighway of snowmobile corridor 16. There is only one little wiggly section in the middle between Gorham/Jericho and it is open for snowmachine traffic, but unpermitted for ATV use. I was one of the principles with the development of Jericho Mt. State Park, so was often in the room or part of the discussions on many of these developments. When finding the route for Smitty's Trail, the trails bureau had to compromise much of the location per the request from Town of Gorham (Water Dept.) to keep the trail out of the town forest watershed.
Peakbagger is absolutely right that it is a struggle for the growing ATV rental businesses to operate and expand out of Gorham as both him and I have lived with and seen the struggles with this traffic. That's why North East set up a trailer just outside of Jericho even though their business is in Gorham, so that they could more easily rent to folks who want to ride in Jericho. And in Gorham when this all started, I stated at the first town meeting as a resident, that the best thing to do would be to develop a large trailhead to accommodate trucks with trailers within close walking proximity to businesses, have an information kiosk, and provide toilets. This was not done and instead a neighborhood was terrorized for some time to the point of suing the State of NH, with a safety/traffic nightmare on Rte.2 and people driving 3 hours to get out and pee in private lawns and not know where they are going. I would say this was poor planning and ironic that they just finally developed into the Polaris parking lot/trailhead that should have been there in the beginning. I was fully committed to developing the success of the ATV park at Jericho and the larger community and worked very hard towards this end, but man when they got vicious and ran roughshod over everyone else's concerns, I had no interest.
And I'm sorry I really don't want my wildlife enforcement professionals time totally wasted by silly ATV issues. I know this is where the law is now but it's a shame. What a waste of talent for something that should be a function of DOT, Dept. of Safety, or the NH Trails Bureau itself. The Trails Bureau personnel used to be sworn enforcement officers for OHRV laws. Around 2008 they removed this from the job role in order to keep current staff employed and eligible for some promotions where maintaining police certification and standards and training was required. Also, Coos County Sheriffs Dept. has contracted to enforce OHRV rules for years now and it is the perfect group to do so. I know all those guys and they retire from NH State Police, NH F&G, and Coos Sheriff's Dept. to get rehired as part-time Coos Deputies and most love riding ATV. It's just beyond me that in a state that is short on Wardens takes a group of people highly trained in wildlife issues and skilled and equipped in technical rescue have to spend an inordinate amount of time playing traffic cop and OHRV accident response/reconstruction. I for one value wildlife and attention to these issues more. In fact, Lt. Ober from Region 1 announced over a month ago that they would no longer respond to OHRV incidents on town roadways as it was an inappropriate drain on the limited warden resources, more appropriately handled by local law enforcement.
But I know, it's all about the money.
