Summer Fun! Berry Picking, Paddling & Hiking

PHOTO: Becca paddling her packraft on Wachipauka Pond, 2.3 miles up the Appalachian Trail from NH Route 25 in Warren, NH. Webster Slide Mountain, elevation 2,130 feet, rises straight up from the water’s edge. Wachipauka is an Abenaki word that means “mountain pond.”

by Amy Patenaude
Outdoor/Ski Writer

Right now all I can think about is there is too much summer fun out there for me to be focused on writing my column. The sun is finally out and there are more blackberries and blueberries in the backyard waiting for me to pick..
In the last two weeks I have been paddling, hiking and out doing trailwork.
I have 40 quarts of blueberries in my freezer. I like berry picking a lot. I like blueberry pie more.
Becca and I hiked into Wachipauka Pond with our packrafts in our backpacks. It was an off and on rainy type of day. You know the kind of day we had the entire month of July. The Wachipauka Pond Trail is a 4.9 mile segment of the Appalachian Trail between NH Routes 25 & 25C and the Pond is just about in the middle (2.3 miles from Route 25).

We were lucky it wasn’t raining when we arrived and we used our battery operated fan-in-the-box to blow up our rafts. We paddled around and there was a lone Loon that didn’t seem interested in us as he went about his fishing business.

The view of Webster Slide Mountain from the water was indeed grand. The ledge faced mountain rises straight up from the water’s edge.
Since it wasn’t raining at that moment, we decided to hike up to the top of Webster Slide, it’s less than a mile and a good 600 vertical feet of climbing! We took the Pond spur path up to the AT at the four corner intersection–the AT, the Webster Slide Trail & the spur path to the pond.
Near the summit we followed a couple of herd paths to the top of the open ledges. It was wet and slippery so we didn’t climb down lower for the best views. We felt lucky we could see down to the pond and the clouds were floating just above nearby Mount Mist.
We met a couple AT northbound thru hikers. They too were wet. We told them about the pretty pond and the Loon just below but they elected to stick to the AT and kept hiking fast to reach the Hikers Welcome Hostel in Glencliff.
Back in our boats we were having a good time just as the rain decided to come down hard. We packed up and hiked back down the wet slippery and sometimes muddy trail. Still it was a fun morning to hike and paddle.

Danielle, Bria and I went to the Randolph Mountain Club’s trails to do more trail work. We are RMC volunteers and where we do trail work is coordinated with the Club.
We headed up Lowe’s Path and then onto The Link. When we did our traverse of The Link we had discovered that the lower section was blocked by a wall of Spruce between Castle Brook and the Castle Trail. We hiked 4.5 miles to reach Castle Brook and we were happy that this time it wasn’t raining.
We pulled our loppers out of our packs and we cut and snipped away like maniacs for 1.5 hours. It is rewarding work to clear a trail knowing that other hikers will enjoy our work so they don’t have to push through brush and tree limbs.
Since we were near the Emerald Path we decided to go up and visit Emerald Bluff and then go down the Israel Ridge Path to The Link. The distance wasn’t too much longer than taking The Link all the way back but it did add a lot of elevation. We huffed and puffed up the steep path and then we took a long break on top of Emerald Bluff. We enjoyed watching the clouds lift above the Castellated Ridge and we looked deep into Castle Ravine. We had a good day of work and play.

Yesterday after work Charlie and I took our Kayaks down to the River Road boat launch in Henniker for a good hour of paddling on the Contoocook River. The water was pretty high but this long flat section of the River is much like a long skinny lake. We’re going to keep trying to get out after work more.
Summer, just like winter, is too short! I haven’t even been to Clark’s Trading Post yet to see their new sweet bear cubs!
Have fun.

blueberries hike NH