Since the weather looked so nice while stuck at work all morning I made the short trip over to College Woods in Durham for a little walk/hike this afternoon. I haven't been there since I went to UNH back in the late 90's but it's on my list of local spots to visit whenever I have a few free hours and I decided today would be a good day to go check it out again before heading to Adams Point to see if any bald eagles were hanging around.
My roughly 3 mile route
I started at the Mill Pond Road access point just as a little squall blew through and cooled things off a bit. The trails were about 75% hard packed snow and ice, which was much different then the 99% ice free trail just a few miles away at Adams Point this past weekend.
Partially iced trails made me put on traction
Fortunately I had a new pair of Hillsounds to break in and they were perfect for the conditions. The trails were pretty slick and tractions or extreme care is a requirement at the moment for most of the way. I saw Yaktrax and stabilicer tracks and even one jogger shuffling along slowly in sneakers but he was having a slippery go of it for sure. The trail grades gently downhill until you get to the banks of the Oyster River
After about 1/4 mile you come to the dam on the Oyster River that makes a small resevoir for the towns water supply. There's a bridge you can cross or you can follow a trail along the riverbank to another bridge farther up. I crossed at the dam on the way out and the other on the way back and did my route counter clockwise.
Bridge at the dam
Once across the river I followed a path along the riverbank for another 1/4 mile or so through a nice stand of red pine (I think) until it rejoined the main trail. The path is shown on the map, but it was a pretty good mess of blowdowns and brush, which made it tough to see and follow at times. Certainly not impossible and as long as you keep going you come to the unmistakable main trail eventually.
Red Pines?
At the trail junction I went right, up a slight incline and into the land of the big trees. There are some really big pine and hemlock trees up that trail. Big as in they probably would have been mast pines a few hundred years ago. Most of them are tall and straight and reach right up for the sky. The once sort of famous Paul Bunyan Pine's remains are up there too in a grove of more huge trees, but now it's just a barkless 100 foot shaft with the rest green and mossy lying on the ground. That area still has the biggest trees in the woods, biggest I've seen in any woods actually except strangely enough the Big Pines Natural Area in Tamworth. If you haven't heard me say it before I'm a big fan of big trees and this was a really cool spot that I took my time strolling through and being wowed by all the huge trees.
From there I walked along the 100% snow/ice covered trails until I came to the chanel 11 satelite dishes, where the trail briefly pops out in a parking lot before re-entering the woods. The next section of woods had a lot of old stone walls and trees weren't nearly as big, obviously fields and pastures at one time. The trail from there to the next junction doesn't even show on most maps I've seen of the area but my plan was to follow the perimeter of the trail network back to the river, so I just went right whenever a trail junction came up and sure enough I wound up back at the river.
Oyster River and second bridge
After following the riverbank for a little bit I came to another nice bridge to cross on. Once across the trail continued to follow the river only higher up on a sometimes steep embankment that sloped right down to the river. It was fairly icy and was definitely a spot I was happy to have the spikes for.
Second bridge crossing
Icy path following the river
After about half a mile the trail came back to the dam. I followed the same route back to the car, passing the cool rotted remains of a huge hemlock tree. I thought it was pretty neat to see the branches that hadn't rotted still sticking out of and into the tree. I guess I never thought about it before but I didn't realize they actually grow from a good ways into the trunk of the tree and not just from the side of the tree, but this skeleton made that all pretty clear.
Hemlock skeleton
Once back at the car I headed over to Adams Point to see if any Bald Eagles were out for dinner. They weren't, but I caught a nice sunset and then headed home for dinner myself.
All in all I was impressed with the area. Lot's of huge trees, distinctive red and white pine groves, hemlock groves and a scenic little river, even though it was mostly frozen. I only saw two people in 2 hours and went about 3 miles according to Google Earth. I was impressed with the Hillsounds, which now have a velcro strap across the top to help keep them from falling off, a failing of the older model I believe. The trails and embankments I scrambled up and down for pictures gave me a good feel for them.
The one bad thing I have to say is that the map at the entry point is pretty bad. Some trails/paths seem out of place and some aren't on there at all. Of course they may be newer then than board, or unofficial herd paths but I really had to pay attention to trail junctions and try and keep a good idea of my location at all times, and I had two other maps to look at also. Nothing was marked or blazed with the exception of an occasional piece of surveyors tape. After a good snowfall this could be a surprisingly tough area to go unless you either stay on the main loop or already know your way around. Not that you'd never find your way out, it's only 250 acres, but you might wind up on the wrong side of town. Other than that it was a very enjoyable walk in the woods. There's still plenty of trails on the map I haven't walked yet so I'm sure I'll go back eventually.
There's a few more pictures here if you want to see more
https://picasaweb.google.com/107457015580599787070/CollegeWoods#
And if you want to read any more about the place there's some info here. Maps too if you're interested.
http://colsa.unh.edu/woodlands/properties/collegeWoods
But I do enjoy the photo hobby as much as the hiking hobby so it's worth the trouble to me to drag it along. Both those hobbies seem to be a natural fir for a lot of people for some reason.
