[Journal entry for November 4, 2017] Dallas and I joined Nate Mulherin and his friend Bruce Jackson on a guided hike to Smith Pond, Enfield, New Hampshire. It was led by staffers from the Upper Valley Land Trust, who have worked to preserve this tract of wild land. The land is by the south shore of Mascoma Lake, off of Route 4A, and is adjacent to the Upper Shaker Village historic site. Back in the 19^th Century, the Shakers build waterworks that channeled Smith Pond water to mills in their village.

The day was sunny, with temperatures in the sixties, Fahrenheit. We parked in a small lot off of Route 4A and joined a group of about fifteen people who had signed up this guided hike, which was led by UVLT personnel, including Doug Brown, Alison Marchione, and John Roe. We set off up a trail that passed by the ruins of a stone dam that once impounded a small reservoir in the lower end of a narrow ravine that climbs up into the hills. A stream has breached the dam, but several high rock walls and a spillway is still intact. We then took a trail that ascends up the valley and that passes a small American Chestnut tree, one of several in the area that escaped the early Twentieth Century blight that killed off so many of its kindred. I closely examined its leaves and seed pods, for I had never before encountered them in the wild. We soon came upon one of the several water diversion ditches that were built by the Shakers to channel water from adjacent valleys into this one. The channel was shored up by an earthen berm on the downhill side, and had water flowing in it. We followed the channel uphill, often walking on the berm, as it roughly paralleled the stream. Nate found an iron hoop, about two feet in diameter, that he believed held together a now-vanished wooden pipe that was part of these water works.

We crossed the stream and followed the trail steeply uphill, passing a low quartzite cliff that rock-hounds had been mining for quartz crystals, which occur in druzes in veins. Nate found several small crystals that had been left behind by one of them. Nate and I examined a crude stone foundation that was a little downhill from the cliff.

Further uphill, we came to Little Dog Falls, which is about thirty feet high. We crossed the stream at its base, having a bit of trouble finding good steeping stones, and stood around its plunge pool, admiring the cascading water. We then climbed up to a small grassy wetland above the falls, and walking a little beyond it, came to the shore of Smith Pond. It is a small anthropogenic impoundment, about half a mile across, with a dam at its northern end. According to one of the UVLT staffers, the Shaker’s original dam converted three small ponds (“Lily Ponds”) and their surrounding wetlands into one large pond. The current dam was been built in 2006.

We had lunch beside the lake, some of us sitting on a picnic table on the dam, and others on quartzite boulders beside it. I had Pop-Tarts and water. Afterward, I walked along a pond-side trail. The lake has a few small, picturesque islands, wooded with evergreens. The fall foliage of hardwoods on the pond shore is largely gone, but some of the blueberry bushes still retain their bright red leaves. Many of these bushes are infected with Witches Broom, a fungus that causes abnormal bristly tangles of stems.

After lingering by the pond for an hour or so, we headed back, talking a woods road that was longer, but easier, than the trail. We passed many stone walls, some composed of schist boulders out of which staurolite crystals were weathering. Later, we passed another wetland and several clear-cuts.

Overall, the hike was about five miles long and took about five leisurely hours to complete.