Oak Hill Concord NH trail question

[KRobi]

Went over to Oak Hill in Concord (fire tower if you are doing that list) for a quick morning hike on a local trail. We went up Tower Trail to the fire tower and then came down the "loop" trail that comes off the top on the North side to connect back down to Tower Trail. The trail had a number of blowdowns that were blocking the trail but were fairly spaced out so it was tough to tell if they were natural or "man made". We went down the trail which is cleared, well established and blazed. When we got to the end that connects back to Tower Trail we again encountered blow downs and on this end they were much more substantial and clearly put there by someone (not natural). Looked on city website and the old maps never show this trail as they have not been updated in some time. Does anyone local know if that trail is officially closed?

 

[Salty]

FWIW, the map here:

https://www.concordnh.gov/DocumentCenter/View/9221/Map-12-Oak-Hill-Trails?bidId=

was last updated in May of 2017 according to the pdf metadata, so fairly recent. I pulled one from 2015 off the Internet Archive Wayback Machine and it also shows no trail heading north off of the summit.

That's the best I can do, last time I was physically there the only "trail" was the gated road to the top.

 

[KRobi]

Received this information from the trail maintainer today.
I am one of the trail maintainers at Oak Hill.

As I understand it, the situation is that the land around the
summit of
Oak Hill is privately owned, and the land owners would like there
to be
just one trail to the summit (the trail under the power lines). The
old, closed trail should be left alone, and hopefully have the
vegetation grow back in over time.

Today a friend pointed me at a question by someone who had walked
the trail in the past
and yesterday noticed the blocking of the trail on the Tower Trail
side.
VFTT forum does not allow anyone to make an
account, so I was unable to post an answer. I passed this on to the
poster from his email..

1) Yes, the old summit trail is officially closed, and
2) Significant parts of both that old summit trail, and the
official
summit trail run on private land, owned by the same people, and
3) The property owners would really like people to use the trail
under
the power lines, and allow nature to take its course on the old
trail,
and
4) The Concord city trail maps have been updated
recently,reflecting
that people should only use the official summit trail under the
power
lines.

In general, a fair amount of the Concord trail system is built on
private property, and continued permission to keep and maintain
trails
on private land depends on us behaving well, which includes
sticking to
the trails the property owners gave us permission to use.

Please stick to the official trails (as indicated on the City of
Concord trail maps), and run ideas for new trails by the trail
committee first.