Lots of Good Hiking In and Around Andover

Many resources on the Web, too

May 24, 2016 • Saved under Outdoors
By Larry Chase, for the Beacon

At the Agony Hill Road trailhead of the Old College Road Preserve, Ausbon Sargent Land Preservation Trust (ASLPT) stewardship manager Andy Deegan (right) talks to a group of about 30 hikers before leading a walk on the property's new trails in search of signs of spring. The May 21 walk was co-sponsored by ASLPT and the Andover Conservation Commission. Volunteers Lee Carvalho and Heather Rogers, both of Andover, assisted in the trail-building. The 54-acre property was recently donated to ASLPT by local residents Alex Bernhard and Myra Mayman, Fritz and Barbara Hunting, Joyce Jones, Jon and Vicky Mishcon, and Lori Cox. Caption and photo: Larry Chase

At the Agony Hill Road trailhead of the Old College Road Preserve, Ausbon Sargent Land Preservation Trust (ASLPT) stewardship manager Andy Deegan (right) talks to a group of about 30 hikers before leading a walk on the property’s new trails in search of signs of spring. The May 21 walk was co-sponsored by ASLPT and the Andover Conservation Commission. Volunteers Lee Carvalho and Heather Rogers, both of Andover, assisted in the trail-building. The 54-acre property was recently donated to ASLPT by local residents Alex Bernhard and Myra Mayman, Fritz and Barbara Hunting, Joyce Jones, Jon and Vicky Mishcon, and Lori Cox. Caption and photo: Larry Chase

 

Do you like to hike – to keep fit, to discover new worlds and make new friends, for family recreation, to support a hobby like photography or birding, or just to “get away from it all”? Whatever your reasons, it turns out that Andover is a pretty good place to start from.

As attendees at a February workshop held here learned, Andover has the resources to become a hot bed of hiking, with abundant access to the Northern Rail Trail , the Sunapee-Ragged-Kearsarge Greenway, Proctor Academy’s 2,500-acre woodland campus, the Ragged Mountain State Forest, and the Old College Road Preserve. For more information on the meeting, visit AndoverBeacon.com/index.php/21589/

But wait. There’s more. It turns out that the Internet has a wealth of information about hiking opportunities in what might be considered the “Greater Andover Area.” A number of those sites are listed below.

Need more motivation to get yourself out on the trail? How about joining up with other Andoverites to form some sort of hiking group, whose members could come together regularly and get out and into the natural world – for exercise, for exploration, for fun, for whatever reason?

If interested, please contact the Andover Community Association at AndoverCommunity03216@nullgmail.com to learn more.

Meanwhile, take a look at these Web sites to see what’s available.

Northern Rail Trail overview: FNRT.org

Sunapee-Ragged-Kearsarge Greenway overview: SRKG.com/trails-guide-summary/

Trails in New London: NL-nhcc.com/trails/nlcctrails.htm

Trails in Franklin: FranklinNH.org/Pages/FranklinNH_WebDocs/ThreeRiversWalkingGuide2013.pdf

Dog-friendly trails in the local area: BringFido.com/attraction/trails/city/andover-nh-us/

Bicycling routes: MapMyRide.com/us/andover-nh/

Running routes: MapMyRun.com/us/andover-nh/

Snowmobile routes: AndoverSnowmobileClub.com/trail-map

Detailed description of one Ragged Mountain trail: HikeNewEngland.com/RaggedNH090418.html

Upper Valley trails finder: UVtrails.org