Pisgah State Park

Pisgah State Park is the largest State Park, it's over 21 square miles.  I took a 11 mile hike yesterday through Pisgah State Park from the Kilburn Road Trailhead.  It's a prime time of the year with the traditional New England foliage is at is best in this area.  The foliage line will slowly move South as the weeks past.

We first tried the Kilburn Loop.  It's a 5.8 mile loop from the Kilburn
Road Trailhead from Rt 63.  It's a wonderful loop around Kilburn Pond blazed with blue diamonds.  There's a stream from the pond that leads down to the Ashuelot River.  It's great hearing the roar of the water through the trees and rock gardens.  It has a slight incline towards the loop around back.  It shows wonderful foliage and mushrooms along the way.  It's not an old forest so the trees in it aren't centuries old but it's still enchanting, still the same.

Because we were drawn in to the magic of the park after hiking the Kilburn Loop we decided to add on the Pisgah Mt. Loop (which is a 8.5 mile loop from the Kilburn Road Trailhead).  From the Kilburn Loop Trail follow the "To Pisgah Ridge Trail" sign blazed in yellow (pictured on the left) to get to the Pisgah Ridge Trail junction.  There's a short climb to the first Pisgah Mt. Vista after you turn right from the Pisgah Ridge Trail Junction.  The Pisgah Ridge Trail is blazed in orange.  The views from the East and West are phenomenal.  You can see great views of Monadnock Mt. and the terrain of the Keene area on New Hamsphire to the East.  If you get over to the overlook to the West you can see the southern mountain of Vermont, Stratton, Snow and Bromley.  The views are simply humbling.  The view reveals the beautiful country of southern NH and VT.

If you follow the Pisgah Ridge Trail it leads to the peak of Pisgah Mountain where you can see Pisgah Reservoir.  It's a beautiful view from the outlook to the right of the peak.  We follow the ridge trail down the ridge and it loops around in between the mountain and the reservoir and connect up to the Reservoir Trail.  We turned left at this junction and made our way to the Baker Pond Trail which lead up back to the beginning of the Pisgah Ridge Trail, which again is blazed in orange.  This section of the trail leads you by two more wonderful vista upon your way back to the junction of the spur trail that leads back to the Kilburn Loop.  The leaves were showing wonderful colors of red, yellow and green leaves.  We also saw some multicolored leaves - purple and yellow and red with yellow.  Simply breath taking.  Check out this Summer Trails map so you can see the actual trail we took.  If you ride snowmobiles here is the Winter Trails map.

In conclusion this is a wonderful place to explore hiking, mountain biking and kayaking.  I look forward to spending more time exploring the other trails in this park.

See the links below for more information about the park, trails and area of Pisgah State Park.
Pisgah State Park Pisgah Mtn. Loop
Pisgah State Park - Chesterfield Conservation Commission
The New Hampshire Division of Parks and Recreation : Pisgah State Park