I was in the Upper Valley for a few days over last weekend, and had some time to run, so decided to come up with another “run on the road”. While this blog does focus on Addison County runs, the Upper Valley, roughly centered around the Hanover, NH, Lebanon, NH, and Norwich, VT is only an hour and a half away, so might provide opportunities for other locals on the road! Running in this area holds special meaning to me: Many years ago, as a graduate student at that moderately known institution of higher learning in Hanover, I got my first taste of trail running, running on the trails tucked into the forest between the Hanover Country Club and the Connecticut River. When I lived in the area, I was vaguely aware of some little-used trails in the undeveloped forest, just south of the Hanover Village, bounded by Rt. 10 alongside the Connecticut River to the west, Lebanon Rd, aka Rt 120 to the east, and I-89 to the south. But, at that point in my life, my trail time was focused on bagging the highest peaks in NH, so I rarely explored the trails in my own backyard! Although I don’t usually do this, I have included a map of this area courtesy of Google Maps. This most important thing to note is that there are no roads going into the interior of this accessible semi-wilderness. While it is not apparent at this scale, if you zoom in on this area in Google Maps, the trails are shown, many of them with their names! More on that later…….
Running Area South of Hanover
Looking over the maps of the region a little more closely, I realized that I had been to one location in this region numerous times in the past. The small lake, about a half mile uphill from the Wilder Dam Parking lot, just south of Hanover, was the location of many weekend afternoons with grad school friends, swimming, cooking burgers, and yes, drinking beer. So, I chose this lake, known as Boston Lot Lake, as my destination from a trailhead along Lahaye Drive, the road which runs along the southern boundary of the Dartmouth Medical Center access road.
So, I set off on my run a little later than usual, planning on a 4-5 mile run to Boston Lot Lake from this trailhead. The first complication here was that my cell phone, which I was counting on for access to Google Maps for navigation in a area which I was not familiar with, was down to the end of its battery life. The second complication was that since it was rather late in the afternoon, I had to be concerned about darkness. Arriving at the trailhead, I spoke with a mountain biker who was loading up his car, who warned me that there were a lot of trails back there which were not actually on the map which I was using. OOOOOOKKKKKKKKKK…….
Setting off from the trailhead, I indeed found many of the aforementioned unmarked trails, and found myself constantly checking my phone for bearings. The trail network in this section was complex, but traveled through a lush, dark, hemlock forest with plenty of tree roots to keep the running “interesting”.
Hemlock Forest
The trail at this point went by the not surprising name of “The Hemlock Loop”, and it eventually connected to the Northside trail, which in turn brought me to the shores of Boston Lot Lake, which I had not visited in more years than I care to admit. It was a very cloudy early evening, but for some reason the Lake didn’t look quite as big as I remembered it. Isn’t it funny how time does that? Running around the lake, the vegetation seemed to transition from hemlock to oak, with the associated danger – it seems that the oak forest was infested with super squirrels who were knocking down and collecting acorns left and right – I heard these rodent-sized projectiles crashing all around me, but fortunately none knocked my noggin!
Boston Lot Lake
After the mile or so jaunt around the lake, I realized that I had to get back to my parked car….soon. There wasn’t a lot of light left in the day, and frankly, the woods were pretty dark. Finally, my cell phone, which I was counting on for actually finding my way home, was warning me that it was down to the last gasps of its charge. So, consulting the map with the notion of finding the straightest possible route back to a real road, I picked a trail called “The Indian Ridge Trail”, which appeared to be more or less straight and easy to navigate on weak sunlight. The challenge to this trail was that it left me a little farther from my car than I would have preferred. The Indian Ridge was probably the prettiest part of the run – as the trail name implied, the route was along a ridge, and I suspect that after the leaves fall, it might actually offer a few limited views of the surroundings. I also passed by an intact stone wall from a hill farm which probably bad not been in existence for at least a hundred years, judging from the girth of the surrounding trees.
Deep Woods Stone Wall
And of course, a few moments after I took this last picture, my cell phone went black with a dead battery, but fortunately my on-the-fly route planning proved correct, and I reconnected with the roads surrounding the medical center, and was able to follow this in the fading light to my returning car.
My four-five mile run ended up being more like a six and a half miler, and while there were no serious hill climbs in this route, it was hardly flat. Also, a perfunctory look at the maps of the region indicate that there are a myriad of trailheads which offer access to this extensively forested area. Good running!
Altitude Profile