History Trail

I had read in the local paper recently, that there was a guided walk exploring the history of the Camden Hills State Park. This particular program called “the other side of the park”, would reveal the history of the Sagamore Section (the shoreline section across Route 1), and its construction by the Civil Conservation Corps and the landscape architect Hans Heisted. Just from the description I had already learned that this side of the park had a name. I had heard of Sagamore Farm which was just south of this location but did not know that the name also referred to the park itself.

On August 19^th, my husband and I arrived at the ranger booth and joined 5 others for the tour and a history lesson. While we were waiting for our guide, I noticed a small sign across from the booth that indicated a trail I hadn’t seen before. I believe it was called the History Trail. We generally came to this side to walk along the Shoreline Trail, which I thought was the only path here, sit at the tables along this avenue and enjoyed our coffee with excellent water views.

What I did learn was that Heisted, who worked with the Olmsteads for a bit, eventually became the landscape architect for the Camden Hills State Park. The History Trail showed his vision for getting people into nature. The path curved around so that visitors experienced many different aspects of nature, some of which had to be imagined today. I believed this trail was rehabilitated by the most recent trail manager of the park.

Our first stop was at a large beech tree. I counted six trunk sections that expanded in different directions. The tree was not in very good shape and I wondered how much longer it would stand. The photo I took did not capture the grandeur of this tree. It was one of those stops where we had to imagine a single tree in a meadow. Over time the meadow turned back to forest.

As we continued along, we discovered the remnants of stone dams that created pools and cascading water in a different time. We also made a stop at a picnic area with the remnants of several stone stoves or ovens. Opposite this was another stone structure with a faucet, so there was access to a fully equipped cooking area.

Continuing on towards the Shoreline Trail, our guide pointed out how Heisted incorporated natural material in order to encourage people to sit and enjoy nature for a while. We didn’t notice until our narrator pointed out stones that were meant to be flat tables with rocks around them for chairs. Once these areas had been pointed out, we saw them in several areas throughout the tour.

Eventually, we reached a section of the Shoreline Trail that had stone steps heading down to the shore. The steps looked pretty uneven and it was a long way down. With images of falling down those stone steps I decided discretion was the better part of valor and declined to make the descent. One other person in our group felt the same way, so we sat on a bench with an excellent water view while the others went down. I instructed my husband to take a picture, so the credit for that photo goes to him.

We finished our tour at an enclosed picnic area with views of a single massive tree and the water behind it. It was a great way to end our tour.

Tanglewood Again 2026

Even though I had only visited the Tanglewood Preserve back in May, I decided to explore it again on August 15^th. My primary reason for this visit was to see if any progress had been made on the Forest Loop Trail. I had read so much about adding bog bridges and replacing old ones, but I had not seen any progress on the river side of the Forest Loop closest to the parking area and the River Trail. The last time I was here was the height of mud season and there were long stretches of the trail that needed attention.

Once we arrived, I decided we would take the Forest Loop to the camp and then return on the road so that the going would be easier when I was tired. I had found since my surgery 8 months ago that fatigue had been a problem, even on trails I have hiked many times.

Hiking the Forest Loop in August meant that mud wouldn’t be as much of a problem. We could certainly see where there was mud during the wet season and noted that no bog bridging had taken place yet. In some areas, where logs had been placed log ago to get across the mud, these logs were almost completely reclaimed by nature. They had replaced a rotting snow mobile bridge across a stream, but that was it.

As we continued towards the River Trail I stopped for a second, then ducked as I stepped forward and warned my husband about the spider web. It was a beautiful web, stretched across the path. After taking some pictures, we headed towards the river. There were bare spots near the falls, indicating that we had not had enough rain this year for the falls to really flow. We did spot some Cardinal Flowers in some of these areas, but could not get close enough for pictures.

We made our way from the River Trail back towards the Forest Loop. Here we started to see new bridges, stream crossings and planking. As I suspected most of the work had been done closer to camp. Along this section, I found clusters of Dewdrops and some very large polypores in the middle of the path.

The trail got a bit wider as we approached the camp. Once there, we found a picnic table and enjoyed a snack, while I rested a bit. I was tired and glad that we decided to return to the parking lot via the dirt road.

Cameron Mountain 2026

As I started to get back into the woods after my surgery, I decided that my first hiking goal for the year would be to Cameron Mountain in the Camden Hills State Park. Given my trepidation on relatively flat, easy trails, I felt this was a reasonable goal. It consisted of two wide, multi-use roads with a bit of terrain difficulty near the summit. The hardest part would be the duration of the 4+ miles round trip. It had been a long time since I had taken a long walk in the woods.

On July 27^th, my husband and I set out for the Multi-use trailhead on the Lincolnville side of the park. This 5-mile road went from the main entrance of the park in Camden to Lincolnville. Most of the trails in the park branched off from the Multi-use Trail.

It took us about 40 minutes or more to make it up the 1.2 mile steady incline of the Multi-use Trail to the Cameron Mountain Trail. Of course, we made the usual breathing stops along the way. During this time of year, the Spring flowers were done and the Summer ones were not yet in bloom, so there were no long stops to study the vegetation.

The Cameron Trail was fairly flat, with only a few hilly sections. We failed to stop at the bridge and admire the stream near the path, only because we couldn’t hear the water running. On our return trip, we made a point to look for it and discovered that the stream bed was completely dry. Hence there was no babbling brook.

We strolled along this path for another mile, until we reached the spur that led to the Cameron Mountain summit. Before making this last push, we paused to identify the Steeple Bush and Fireweed flowers. This Fireweed or Chamerion Angustifolium was the one with the red flower, which I don’t see that often. I only recently discovered that the yellow flower that looks like a very tall dandelion and was also called Fireweed or Erechtites Hieraciicolius, was also known as Burnweed.

While I was making these discoveries, my husband was eating the blueberries growing in the field. Once we were finished with our tasks, we headed up the hill. This last section gets quite steep and is covered with loose stones, so I was quite a bit nervous as I maneuvered through the scree, but I made it. Goal accomplished! We found a boulder to sit on for a long rest and a bite to eat.

On the way down, I did slip a bit on the loose stones which caused me to freeze for a minute. I took a few deep breaths to try and dispel the fear of falling that I had developed over the past year, before gingerly working my way down this short, problematic section. We finished our journey without further incident, but I was exhausted. I decided the next day would be a day of rest.

Bretzfelder Memorial Park

Since we had bailed on the hike at the summit of the ski area early on the afternoon of July 13^th, we were looking at a long afternoon before we could go out for dinner. My husband was not one for hanging around, so he suggested we drive to Littleton and walk around before our planned dinner in Bethlehem. Ever the researcher, I hunted around for any trails very near the Bethlehem area and discovered Bretzfelder Memorial Park.

The Bretzfelder Park was one of several protected by the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests. In fact, I had put another property, called The Rocks, owned by this society on my list of possible places to visit while planning out this trip. I always added way more things than we could possibly accomplish when mapping out a trip, so that there were plenty of options.

The Bretzfelder property’s claim to fame was a white pine that was estimated to be over 200 years old, but it also included almost 2 miles of trails. The park was pretty easy to find. We headed west for maybe 20 minutes and turned right near the middle of town. Just a few more miles and we were at the parking lot. We studied the trail map and noticed that there was a tree ID trail and a system of trails where we could create a loop around 2 wet areas. We opted for the loop.

The only part of this trail system where I was a little bit nervous was near the beginning when we had to make a 180-degree turn on a decline, and it seemed like the path was a bit narrow here. I had visions of slipping off the side and sliding down the hill. I managed this tiny bout of nerves, and the rest of the walk went without incident.

After our descent into the forest, we very shortly crossed a bridge over a small stream. From there we soon found one of the ponds. There was a grassy area around this basin, and several picnic tables were located nearby. I took a few reflection pictures as we walked around. It really was a lovely area to sit by the water and just take in the soothing vibes of nature. After strolling around the area for a bit, we re-entered the woods and continued our journey. In some spots the woods were covered with moss or ferns. We also found several different types of mushrooms along the way. The best was the tiny red-capped specimen.

We never did find that second body of water. I suspect that it was just a wetland because there was an area where we encountered a lot of biting insects. Once we got past that, we were on the return side of the loop. We were beginning to lose some light in the woods as we made our way back towards the entrance. Between that and the fact that it was our third walk of the day, I started to scuff the rocks and roots under my feet. I did remain upright though, so that was a plus.

Back at the kiosk, I commented that we never did find that White Pine. Right next to the kiosk, I saw the Tree ID Trail and walked a few yards down the path. There in front of me was that massive tree. We could actually see the darn thing from the car! Satisfied with our exploration, we headed off to dinner.

West Mountain Hiking Trail

July 13^th was turning out to be the busiest day of our New Hampshire explorations. We had completed our walk along the Lower Ammonoosuc Falls before 10 and had returned to the condo. But the day was still young! At the condo, I looked out the window where we had a great view of the ski area across the street and decided we should take the Gondola up to the summit, have lunch and hike the West Mountain Hiking Trail along the summit.

This seemed like a good idea, so by 11 o’clock we had purchased tickets and were on our way up the mountain. The views from the gondola were amazing. We had a nice, overall image of the Bretton Woods Hotel and the mountains behind it. For those who are in to history, the Bretton Woods hotel was one of several remaining grand hotels in New Hampshire. It also hosted the Bretton Woods Monetary and Financial Conference in 1944 which established the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

The trip up to the summit lasted about 15 minutes. Once we arrived, we walked around the lodge for a bit and decided to have an early lunch at the Switchback Grill. Lunch was lovely. After lunch we went to check out the West Mountain Hiking Trail.

As we approached the trailhead, I almost turned back immediately. The road near the gondola consisted of loose gravel. It got worse when we reached the trail, and I noticed that the beginning section of the path headed downhill and consisted of these loose stones and roots! I somehow made it through this obstacle and we continued our walk. We were still near the edge of the woods, so we stopped briefly to look out at the field and the mountains beyond.

There were a lot of ups and downs along the way. I had foolishly thought that a trail the crossed the summit of a mountain would go in a gentler up and down direction and was surprised by this. The forest floor was covered in pine needles and moss, but there were still roots and rocks to avoid. I guess I just wasn’t prepared for the steepness of those small elevation changes.

When we reached another spot with a tricky descent I decided to bail, not just because of my trauma issues over my declining technical abilities, but I knew I had to make the return trip through this same area. We had only gone about a third of the way in one direction. At this point, we turned around and I managed to get through some of the difficult areas by stopping and admiring the Mountain Wood Sorrel and the Bunchberries that had gone to seed.

Since we failed to complete this trail, we were back at the condo by 1:30, so I still needed to come up with a plan for the rest of the day.