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Ski
Hiking Trail Conditions Report
Peaks
Peaks Blueberry Mountain, NH
Trails
Trails: Blueberry Mountain Trail
Date of Hike
Date of Hike: Wednesday, October 6, 2021
Parking/Access Road Notes
Parking/Access Road Notes: There is room for 3 cars, maximum, at the area before the gate. Other than that, it’s not clear where parking would be legal as Page Road is quite narrow. There was one other car when I arrived (two young ladies were headed back when I was headed up). A different car was there when I returned and belonged to the nice lady that I met who was on her first hike after knee surgery! 
Surface Conditions
Surface Conditions: Dry Trail, Wet Trail, Wet/Slippery Rock, Standing/Running Water on Trail, Mud - Minor/Avoidable, Mud - Significant 
Recommended Equipment
Recommended Equipment:  
Water Crossing Notes
Water Crossing Notes: The boggy area between the stone fence and the trailhead (around 1.5 miles from the trailhead) is currently boggy but really well placed rocks and log cuts that are, surprisingly, not very slippery, make it easily rock hoppable.  
Trail Maintenance Notes
Trail Maintenance Notes:  
Dog-Related Notes
Dog-Related Notes: Mine would have loved this trail - she hiked it from the other trailhead previously!! 
Bugs
Bugs: Surprisingly, I got 4 mosquito bites on this trail, today. It’s October, which seemed a little late for this problem! 
Lost and Found
Lost and Found: None 
 
Comments
Comments: I am a bit concerned about the trampling of the delicate vegetation in the ledge section of this trail, measured as 2.2 to 2.7 miles from the Page Road trailhead. There are two herd-path-type bypasses around very muddy sections that themselves are both excessively muddy. Each is 20’ long and in each case (the trail and the herd path bypass) you are up to your ankles in mud. It’s so sad to see the plants trampled this way.
What’s worse is the sideways section of the ledges - where the path is narrow and it’s like a tilted sidewalk of ledge? In these areas the stone is slimy green; clearly the slippery muck is not just this week’s problem but has been going on for a while. People are walking not just at the bottom edge of it, where the stone meets the dirt but with your foot on the stone and braced on the dirt to prevent sliding, but also just tromping across the vegetation at the bottom. Heartbreaking.
The very worst is a small vertical section of this ledgy narrow sidewalk, that is just plain green! This section is at least 10’ long. Going up was ok but coming down, well, I sat down and slid straight down it in my indestructible EMS pants, because there was absolutely no way to walk down that surface and I am not currently interested in emergency joint replacement surgery. The herd path goes to the right (looking from the top), straight through that beautiful low shrubbery that is up there, which is clearly not much better to walk on than the trail because there are depressions where you can see that people have fallen sideways off it.
So I am hoping that the official people can take a look at this trail section. It is a beautiful area and having a trail there is great, but right now it seems that we are all doing a lot of harm to the vegetation by walking on it.
By comparison I also hiked Moosilauke today (up Gorge Brook, over Beaver Brook and down Asquam Ridge) and that is a muddy mess, particularly Gorge Brook. But there has clearly been a lot of effort to redirect people back onto the path and to add stones to walk on to somewhat reduce the muddy foot situation. There is still a bit of undesirable trail widening going on, but it seems to be a focus to manage it, which is terrific. So it’s not that the trails are muddy (they all are!) it’s what people are doing to the vegetation to work around the mud that concerns me.  
Name
Name: Bikecamphikegirl  
E-Mail
E-Mail:  
Date Submitted
Date Submitted: 2021-10-06 
Link
Link: https:// 
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