For our first snowshoe adventure of the 2016-2017 season we started with something familiar, the East Side Trail along the Pemigewasset River (East Branch). This trail starts at the Lincoln Woods ranger station off of the north side of the Kancamagus Highway (NH Rt. 112), a few miles east of the Loon Mountain Ski Area. This is a fairly simple walk with little elevation change.

It snowed about a foot over the previous 24 hours. Although it was clear when we started, it was snowing pretty heavily by the time we finished the hike.

Three-season steps down to Lincoln Woods Trail.

Coming down from the Ranger Station on the path behind Larry.

When you walk down from the Ranger Station you are presented with this trail sign. To the left is the suspension bridge that crosses the river to the Lincoln Woods Trail along the west/north side of the river (this used to be called the “Wilderness Trail"). If you go to the right (which is what we did) you walk along the east/south side of the river.

A left turn here if you are hiking the Lincoln Woods Trail on the other side of the river.

East Side Trail.

Although the trail was a bit more muddled than the side would suggest, there is a goal of keeping the outside tracks for the skiers and the middle for snowshoers.

At about 0.6 miles is the cutoff for the Pine Island Loop. This is a roughly .85 mile loop across Pine Island (see map) which is a small body of land surrounded by the river and various brooks that flow into it. We opted to pass this cutoff and take the loop in the reverse direction.

The loop re-enters the trail at about 1.5 miles which is where we turned onto it to start the return trip.

The Pemi runs along the right side of the trail for a while. Looking ahead.

Looking back.

This is an island so you need to cross water to get to it (and get back). The first crossing was about a quarter mile in from the cutoff (about 1.75 miles into the trip). It was really pretty easy. It wasn’t very wide and there were rocks that we could step on even with the snow shoes.

The second crossing (at about 2.2 miles) was trickier (this was actually the third crossing, since just before it we needed to cross a small brook). This crossing was wider and many of the places we stepped on collapsed into the water as we stepped (they were just snow on top of ice). So we needed to poke around to find snow that had rocks underneath. But we made it across. This picture is looking back after we crossed.

The loop takes a hairpin here and then meets the main trail again at 2.35 miles.

The total hike was almost exactly 3 miles and took us about 2 hours and 15 minutes including a stop for a bit of lunch.

— Eileen and Larry Samberg - 30-Dec-2016