Distant Hill Nature Trail


“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another."   

Charles Dickens


This video walks you along the first 700 feet of the new accessible gravel trail built at Distant Hill Nature Trail during the summer and fall of 2023. An additional 600' of trail was completed after this video was made, but before the first snow fell in December. The combined trails added another quarter-mile to the accessible trail network at Distant Hill. In 2024 we hope to add another quarter-mile of trail, completing a loop with the 2023 traIl. That will give us a full two-miles of wheelchair and stroller accessible trail for visitors to explore!

Music Credit: 'Garden Song' by Dave Mallett. This is the original 02:36 min. version of the song.

Watch the video to the end and you'll notice that the song ends exactly as I finished walking the trail!


Distant Hill Nature Trail is a network of both accessible and hiking trails, including two miles of wheelchair and stroller accessible smooth gravel trails and three miles of more difficult non-gravel hiking trails. The network of trails includes 'White Rock Woods' Nature Play Area, Distant Hill Geology Trail, and the Distant Hill Story Walk® trail. All are open to the public daily, free of charge, from dawn to dusk. There is a parking area just off March Hill Road at the Alsteads/Walpole town line. You will find a kiosk there containing a trail map and other information about the trail.

 

Pets are welcome on leash. Please no horses or wheeled vehicles with the exception of wheelchairs, strollers, or children's wagons. The trail is perfect for power-walking, running, or jogging. In fact, the Surry Village Charter School has used Distant Hill Nature Trail on many occasions as a practice venue for its track team!

 

Distant Hill Nature Trail is now a mile long, giving access to four vernal pools and a forest seep.
Distant Hill Nature Trail is now a mile long, giving access to four vernal pools and a forest seep.

Nature Trail Hours

Distant Hill Nature Trail, Geology Trail, Hiking TrailsNature Play Area, and Distant Hill Story Walk® Trail are all open to the public daily, year-round, from dawn to dusk.

 

 Parking is available at the trailhead just off the paved road

66 March Hill Road, Alstead, NH 03602


The Surry Village Charter School track team using Distant Hill Nature Trail for training. Here they are running across the narrow boardwalk that crosses the cranberry bog.
Surry Village Charter School track team using Distant Hill Nature Trail for training.

The Story of Distant Hill Nature Trail

Adrian Curtis, a student with ACCESS, directing Michael Nerrie with a tractor-bucket load of gravel. They are building an accessible hiking trail to one of the vernal pools at Distant Hill Gardens.
ACCESS student Adrian Curtis and Michael Nerrie building the first section of accessible trail at Distant Hill. Photo by Davis Brush.

In the fall of 2013, we began building the first accessible nature trail at Distant Hill Gardens. The work was partially funded through the Quabbin to Cardigan Partnership (Q2C), a collaborative effort to conserve the Monadnock Highlands of north-central Massachusetts and western New Hampshire. The grant was applied for and administered through ACCESS, a now defunct Keene, NH, based non-profit helping people with disabilities.

 

Three days a week for six weeks that fall, a small group of students and teachers from ACCESS helped us start installing the base layer of our first accessible trail. It snaked its way through the woods to one of the ten vernal pools on the property.

 

Michael and 'Goldie' installing the base layer for the accessible loop trail.
Michael Nerrie and 'Goldie' installing the base layer for the accessible loop trail.

In the spring of 2014 we received a second Q2C grant and continued with the same ACCESS students to build the rough base trail to a second vernal pool. We worked throughout the summer of 2014 and completed the base for a half-mile long loop trail that connects four vernal pools and a black ash seep.

 

We were able to finish installing the base layer of gravel for the loop trail in the summer of 2014, thanks to the all-terrain dump tractor our friend, Ellen Jensen, graciously loaned us. ‘Goldie’ sped up the installation of gravel considerably! (‘Goldie’ is Ellen’s nickname for her tractor, made by the Italian company Goldoni.) 

Michael Nerrie clearing leaves from the Distant Hill Nature Trail.
Michael Nerrie clearing leaves from the Distant Hill Nature Trail.

 In May 2015, we received a third Quabbin-to-Cardigan grant to finish the loop trail with a smooth compacted gravel surface suitable for wheelchairs and strollers. The Cheshire County Conservation District (CCCD) acted as our financial administrator for these grant funds. For this section of the trail we had a middle school student supplied by The Hooper Institute in Walpole NH help with the trail building.

 

We finished the main loop trail in the fall of 2015 and opened it to the public in the spring of 2016.

 

Since the opening of the initial half-mile of trail in 2015, we used donations from the many workshops and events at Distant Hill Gardens to add another 900 feet of trail in 2016, and another 1,500 feet in 2017. This brought the total length of Distant Hill Nature Trail to just under one mile. 

 

Thanks to the support of 120 donors through our NH Gives Annual Fundraiser in June of 2021, we were able to purchase the gravel to make the first half-mile of Distant Hill Geology Trail wheelchair and stroller accessible in 2022!

 

2023 Update: We built another quarter-mile of accessible trail during the summer and fall of 2023. In 2024 we plan to add yet another quarter-mile of accessible trail which will connect the 2023 trail to the existing Distant Hill Geology Trail.


Learning to Build Accessible Trails

A section of accessible hiking trail at Crotchet Mountain Rehabilitation Center in Greenfield, New Hampshire. This incredible trail system was designed and built by Peter Jensen and Associates, LLC.
Crotched Mountain accessible trail photo by Peter Jensen

Michael Nerrie, the CEO (Chief Environmental Observer) of Distant Hill Gardens and Nature Trail, and chief builder of the trails, learned the fine points of building accessible trails at a workshop on Sustainable Trail Design in October 2013. It was taught by noted trail builder Peter Jensen of TrailBuilders.com.

 

Peter and crew designed and built the longest Accessible Trail System in a mountainside environment in the United States at Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center in Greenfield, New Hampshire. 


Everyone Can Dream! ...

An off-road electric cart like this would help to make the wilder areas of Distant Hill more accessible.
An off-road electric cart like this would help to make the wilder areas of Distant Hill more accessible.

Additional trails and paths are being made more user friendly every year, but we can not make all the trails fully accessible.

 

We are hoping to purchase an off-road electric cart for the rougher, undeveloped, and steeper trails. This would enable us to transport visitors who need assistance to all the features of Distant Hill, even those sites that are not connected by accessible trails.

 

Between Donations, Grants, Crowd-funding and saving our pennies, we hope to slowly fund the 'Trails-for-All' construction and the equipment purchases.

 

Michael Nerrie

May 2012

 


... Our Dream Unexpectedly Came True!

The ClubCar 'Onward' cart being used to transport older visitors with mobility limitations around Distant Hill in 2024.
The 'Onward' cart being used to transport older visitors to Distant Hill in 2024.

In December 2017 we entered a contest giving away a Club Car Onward four-person electric personal transport vehicle. With the help of hundreds of our Facebook Friends, we won! 

 

Michael Nerrie

January 2017


October 2018 Update: Since the Club Car Onward was delivered in May 2017, we have used it dozens of times to transport people with mobility limitations on Distant Hill Nature Trail, and on the grass paths throughout Distant Hill Gardens.

A woman with cerebral palsy got to ride in the Onward cart along with a friend and her caregivers.
A woman with cerebral palsy got to ride in the Onward cart along with a friend and her caregivers.