- Tags:
- Recreation,
- Mount Major
The new section of the Main Trail is built with sustainability in mind, designed to control the environmental impacts that hikers have on a landscape.
The Forest Society’s sustainability upgrade at Mount Major is finished! The parking lot was re-opened on Friday, August 26 and the new section of the Main Trail is OPEN for hikers.
Join us for an official ribbon cutting and guided hike on September 12 to celebrate. We'll hold the ribbon cutting at 11 AM and then meet at the trailhead at 1:30 PM to hike the Main Trail to the summit. (RSVP here for the hike.) This free hike will be led by Forest Society staff, who will talk about the three-month project to replace the "worst section of trail in New Hampshire" with a new, sustainably-built section of trail, as part of our years-long effort to make hiking at the beloved mountain safer, more environmentally friendly, and more welcoming.
We are grateful to our incredible partners on this project: Erin Amadon, owner of Town 4 Trails Services LLC; Jed Talbot, owner of OBP Trailworks; and their trail work teams, who constructed the new 1/3 mile section of trail and carried out the restoration work necessary to stabilize and rehabilitate the eroded area of the trail that was closed.
Construction began in May to fix the lower sections of the Main Trail, sometimes called "the canyon," which included some extremely eroded sections — the result of steep grades on sub-optimal soil in a place that is visited by more than 80,000 people annually. That’s more than 480 million footfalls each year!
For decades, the soil eroding from these areas has been washing down the trail, into streams and directly into Lake Winnipesaukee across Route 11 from the Mt. Major parking area. The new trail section requires much less maintenance over time and will reduce runoff and silting into Lake Winnipesaukee.
You can see some photos of the old section of trail vs. the new section of trail below.
More than 300 donors have supported the $300,000 project so far but there is still $50,000 left to raise before we close out the project.
• Will you help keep recreation sustainable at Mt. Major by making a donation?
