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Ski
Hiking Trail Conditions Report
Peaks
Peaks Velvet Rocks, NH
Trails
Trails: Velvet Rocks Trail, Oli’s Trail, Trescott Rd Spur, road walk, Ledyard Link, Velvet Rocks Shelter Loop, East Wheelock Street Spur, Ledyard Link-East Wheelock Street Connector
Date of Hike
Date of Hike: Saturday, January 25, 2020
Parking/Access Road Notes
Parking/Access Road Notes: I parked at the eastern trailhead on Trescott Rd where Hanover Center Trail also starts. There’s a small parking lot just past the trailhead if coming from the south. It’s on the right. It wasn’t plowed and was barely doable in FWD. The snow depth was minimal luckily and a few other cars had been in there recently. I was able to pull to the side so another car or two could park but given that it’s unplowed and probably not used very frequently I wouldn’t be surprised if someone pulled into the middle of it and partially blocked it if they didn’t have AWD. It’s hard to move around in there. There wasn’t enough room for roadside parking unfortunately. Without snow, there’s probably room for at least a half dozen, maybe closer to a dozen cars there. I appeared to be the only car there all day.  
Surface Conditions
Surface Conditions: Snow - Trace/Minimal Depth, Ice - Blue, Snow - Packed Powder/Loose Granular, Snow - Unpacked Powder, Snow - Wet/Sticky 
Recommended Equipment
Recommended Equipment: Light Traction 
Water Crossing Notes
Water Crossing Notes: Nothing of any significance. Would be a good trail to do at high water or after flooding.  
Trail Maintenance Notes
Trail Maintenance Notes: Velvet Rocks Trail was blazed in white for the AT. It was blazed relatively well although that’s not true of the AT everywhere in NH or the area (Moose Mtn area in particular). Most of all other trails and spurs (including the shelter loop I was on) were well blazed in blue. Some of the other trails not mentioned in the guidebook were blazes in other colors (the one that connects with Oli’s Trail is blazed in orange). No blowdowns I recall. The Trescott Rd Spur was on the ground. While walking past the high point just before the spur, it looked like maybe it was the start of the spur. I stopped just after walking past this spot and pulled out Gaia to make sure I hadn’t missed it. Gaia showed that I was exactly at the start of it which I thought was odd since I saw nothing trail like and what I thought may have been the start of it (but was unmarked) I past maybe 50 yards before (Gaia isn’t usually off by that much). I was sort of stumped until I noticed a little orange sign popping up through the snow. Sure enough it was the Trescott Rd Spur sign! I stuck it back in the tree but not before nicking myself with a nail in the back of it. Once the sign was there I did notice a little path but it really isn’t obvious with the sign. I just stopped in a random spot and checked Gaia not realizing I was at the jct. it’d be even easier to walk by from the other direction. I’d bring a GPS if you’re trying to follow it in case the sign falls off again. It’s just south (Hanover side) of the high point. The trail on the whole had a lot of debris on it and was obscure but there was frequent enough blaze to make it fairly easy to follow. Without the blaze it wouldn’t seem much like a trail. Also, East Wheelock Rd Spur was signed as “Velvet Rocks Trail Shortcut” or something along those lines down on the road.  
Dog-Related Notes
Dog-Related Notes: Saw two dogs out there. Should be a fine trail for them.  
Bugs
Bugs: Lots of snowfleas and a couple flying things.  
Lost and Found
Lost and Found: There was a pair of sports glasses on the kiosk at the beginning of Oli’s Trail.  
 
Comments
Comments: Redlined the Velvet Rocks Trail and all the spurs needed for redlining on Saturday. A balmy 35 degrees when I started at 9:30am and 38/39 when I returned around 3:15pm. So long as I kept moving, gloves or glove liners were okay rather than mittens :) The sun wasn’t out so it didn’t feel too warm.

All trails were relatively well blazed. The only one that was obscure was Trescott Rd Spur but it was still quite followable I’m given the blazing. The sign was on the ground at the trail’s start which makes it tricky to find (see trail maintenance section above). I redlined this entire area in one continuous hike and did so in about 10mi and 2000ft of elevation gain. I went up Velvet Rocks Trail from the East, out-and-back on Oli’s Trail, down Trescott Rd Spur, road walk to Ledyard Link, up Ledyard Link to where the shelter loop diverges from Velvet Rocks Trail, then took the shelter loop to East Wheelock Rd Spur, down that, back up to the short connector between it and Ledyard Link which I took to Ledyard Link (not required for redlining but was glad I did it as I walked right by Ledyard Spring on my way up😂), then back to East Wheelock to the shelter loop, finished the shelter loop back to Velvet Rocks Trail, out Velvet Rocks to the trail’s western end, then back up following Velvet Rocks all the way back to the car. It was a little annoying doing so many out-and-backs but it felt very doable.

I brought snowshoes but felt foolish for doing so given the minimal snow depth. Less than a half foot of snow everywhere and the trail’s were generally boot packed. The only one that hadn’t seen any boots was Oli’s Trail but snow depth was minimal enough that snowshoes were unnecessary. There were some snowshoe prints but I’m guessing they were old. With all the rain last night it’d be totally impractical to use them until we got more snow. I didn’t use spikes until I got to the western end of the trail where I put them on for my return trip. There was hardly any blue ice until my descent to the western end where there was some. They may have also been useful in the somewhat slippery, wet snow especially when descending the spur trails but not sure if they would have done much or not. The trail is doable without micro spikes but you’d need to exercise some caution in a few spots and it’d slow you down a bit.

The trails generally have descent grades for snowshoeing with only a few real steep parts. There’s a part on the northern (Etna side) of the shelter loop when you first turn into it that’s very steep. You may want to avoid descending it. We’d need a lot more snow to make it snowshoeable and then it’d be a very difficult snowshoe. My fear would be that it’d just ice up. The section with rope is also steep but not quite as bad.  
Name
Name: Liam Cooney 
E-Mail
E-Mail: liamcooney96@gmail.com 
Date Submitted
Date Submitted: 2020-01-26 
Link
Link: https:// 
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