>The Maskoma Trail was 20 miles long,
>followed today's Province Road in
>Dorchester, NH, and crossed numerous farms
>West of today's NH-118.
The 1948 AMC White Mtn Guide shows a route that does not go up to
Province Road but rather goes NW past Derby Pond (where there was a
shelter built ~1940), unfortunately the map and text disagree about the
next section where the map shows the trail climbing the ridge to the W
while the text has it passing Bryant Pond before climbing Kimball Peak
(sic)
I followed that general route last year, bushwhacking around a section of
posted road
>The last section of the
>Maskoma Trail was abandoned in 1993, called Smarts Trail No. 3, which
>ascended Smarts Mountain from Cummins Pond.
The original trail went by the pond and was used by snowmobiles and ATVs
to service the Smarts Mtn repeater which I think has been removed, NPS
purchase of the AT corridor may prevent such use today
The last time I hiked it, the first section had been relocated to start a
little farther W to avoid the pond shore
> I walked along Cummins Pond Road until it dead ended at a
>gate that looked private. I wasn't chancing it. ...
> it was very important to me to follow the rules, even if I
>was uncertain.
In the '70s I drove through in an ordinary sedan, obviously time and
beavers have made that impossible. I believe it is still a Class 6 road,
you could call the town and ask
The trail description said it went over Thompson Hill with good views from open fields, but it was already covered with trees and the path long gone when I bushwhacked it in the '80s. The guidebook said the trail left now-118 at an old school (which is maybe half a mile S of Province Road) so I took the road NW there as far as a gate where I talked to an elderly resident. He said that I could park there and the snowmobile trails there could be followed to Cummins Pond, but lacking a wife to pick me up I declined his offer.
>As I learned when hiking the Monadnock-Sunapee Trail, massive tracts
>of wilderness do exist in the West part of the State.
There is a Nature Conservancy map that shows plans to acquire conservation easements that would provide 2 corridors from 118 to the Mascoma Headwaters, one where I was looking and one farther S in Canaan. The Green Forest area isn't shown perhaps because it doesn't have an official easement. They requested schemes to build trails hold off until they actually buy the land, and the most famous local trail maintainer is negative bexause he already has too much trail mileage to maintain.
Many of the people involved in the Quabbin-to-Cardigan Initiative expect a trail will be built on to the A.T. somewhere, which would allow you to walk from Mass to Canada on hiking trails not roads - which hundreds of people do every year in VT!
