Continuing its series of “space explorations,” the Andover Institute will offer a hike around Andover’s Elbow Pond led by local outdoor enthusiast Lee Carvalho on Saturday, June 24, beginning at 9 AM.  Free and open to the public, the walk will begin and end at the small parking lot on Elbow Pond Road, just short of a mile beyond its intersection with State Route 11 on the eastern outskirts of Andover Center.

Across mostly level ground, the walk of about four miles will take participants along forest trails, old logging roads and Class 6 town roads (“public roads that the town has no duty to maintain”), across Mountain Brook (which feeds the pond), through private and Proctor Academy lands, and alongside the 62-acre pond.

Expect to be on the move for about three hours, and to see wildflowers, hear bird songs, and check out a beaver-deceiver while enjoying conversation with new friends. Bring a snack and plenty of water. Steady rain cancels.

Much of the pond is invisible from roads in use today. Fed by runoff from Ragged Mountain, the pond water eventually finds its way to the Atlantic Ocean via the Blackwater, Contoocook, and Merrimack Rivers.

Tour guide Carvalho, a retired mathematics teacher at Proctor Academy, is now embarked on a second career of sorts – as an outdoor enthusiast and nature writer/photographer. She is also a member of the board of directors of the Sunapee-Ragged-Kearsarge Greenway Coalition, which manages, and promotes the use of, a 75-mile loop trail connecting the summits of three local mountains.

The walk is the latest in a series of “Space Explorations” offered by the Andover Institute and designed to introduce participants to area locations – both natural and man-made – that receive little public visitation. Previous outings have explored the facilities of Proctor Academy, the 15 or so structures that once comprised Camp Marlyn on Bradley Lake; Cascade Falls and Hopkins (Adder) Pond in East Andover, the old mills and other structures of downtown Franklin, a heron rookery along the Blackwater River, and the SkyeView Alpaca Farm in Elkins.

The Institute is an arm of the Andover Community Association. For more information, e-mail andovercommunity03216@nullgmail.com.