Friends of Pisgah NH

06/20/2026

Beal's K**b, Hike!!!
Friday July 10th 9:30am
Details below.

Please join Friends of Pisgah Council members Ned Olmsted and Ray Dunn on a tour of the Beal’s Rd. region in the NE corner of Pisgah State Park. On this 3.5 mi. loop hike, we will visit the hardscrabble Latham-Beal Cemetery (1790-1885) and discuss the lives of some of the residents who are interred there; investigate foundations and stone sheep pens near the junction with the Fullam Pond Trail; search for an open well at the Hill family homestead; then cut cross-country on a 3/10 mi. guided bushwack to connect with the Beal’s K**b Trail from which a fine view of Mt. Monadnock can be had. For this intermediate-level hike, pack water, snacks, insect repellant, and wear appropriate foot gear. We will meet on Friday, July 10th at 9:30 a.m. at the Beal’s Rd. trailhead (parking is available) off Stones Mill Rd. in Chesterfield, NH. Rain date will be Sat. July 11th.

06/17/2026

WHO'S CALLING?
Left the Merlin bird identification app running during a morning of maintance work in the vicinity of the backwater expanse at Fullam Pond. Twenty birds filled the air with their songs or were seen and identified. Here's a list.

Song Sparrow, Red-eyed Vireo, Robin, Ovenbird, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Pine Warbler, Red-winged Blackbird, Wood Duck and goslings, Common Yellowthroat, Veery, Brown Creeper, Blue Heron, Broad-winged Hawk, Crow, Eastern Wood-Pewee, Eastern Phoebe, Northern Waterthrush, Black-capped Chickadee, Blue-headed Vireo. Far in the distance a brown wading bird was barely visible but was impossible to identify.

Send a message to learn more

06/16/2026

JOIN THE CHAIN (SAW) GANG
If you would like to volunteer in Pisgah or any State Park and have the right to use a chainsaw, there is a chainsaw certification course to be held at the PIsgah visitors center at 520 Old Chesterfield Road in Wi******er starting at 9am on Saturday, June 27th.

If you would like to attend, please email Andrew Pacuk of the NH Trails Bureau at the following address: [email protected]

Andrew will the instructor for the day. There is a two-hour classroom session and two to three hours of chainsaw work. All who attend mush have their own PPE: helmet, eye protection, chainsaw, steel-toed boots, and chaps (two pairs of chaps will be available for those who do not have them on that day).

Those who complete the initial course may use a saw to remove blowdowns and deadfalls from trails and roads.

06/16/2026

KNOW SOMETHING. DO SOMETHING
Building a fire at any time and leaving piles of trash in Pisgah State Park is illegal, of course. Someone knows who the people are who left this pile of charred wood and more than a dozen bottles and cans near the kiosk at the Fullam Pond parking lot just days ago. Someone knows. Tell someone. Tell NH Fish and Game. Fish and Game officers have police powers and jurisdiction within State Parks to exercise those powers.

Saw something? Take photos with your cellphone. Know something? Call 603-352-9669 at the NH Fish and Game District #4 at 15 Ash Brook Court, Keene, NH 03431.

Thank you. And share this post, please.

06/14/2026

THE SCA KIDS ARE ALRIGHT.

Video by Chris Meidell, FOP council member. Artful Bluebird LLC

Click on the Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3ktQ8srd4U&t=13s

In September of 2025, the Friends of Pisgah, in partnership with Ne...

06/13/2026

NO SWEAT
F.O.P. volunteers moved several tons of forest-clean-up debris in the heat on the organization's 103-acre Dort property that hugs the northwest corner of Pisgah State Park. The crew made light of the work, building a mammoth bonfire pile for a winter conflagration.
Photos by Chris Meidell.

06/10/2026

MUDPUPPIES
It took three iron bars, a power winch, trail hoes, shovels, mattocks, a chainsaw, and six souls to fashion a mud-bog bypass at the so-called Big Seep at the halfway point along the five-mile Reservoir Trail. For more than four hours, the volunteer team extracted stones large and small from the glacial rubble in the area and lined the margin of a large mud slick so that the rocks could be backfilled with packed-down sandy soils to create a level lane wide enough for a maintenance UTV to pass through some sixteen vertical inches above the muck.

By creating the bypass, the distance saved in transit from Horseshoe parking lot to the south entrance to the Reservoir Trail figures to be about eleven miles. The bypass will permit winter recreators to slip through the area safely without having to rely on the weather to freeze solid the expansive mud slick.

Special thanks to Tim Mosher, John Weaver, Ned Olmsted, Peter Wotowseic, and Chris Meidell, who joined the park manager in the effort.

Photos by Chris Meidell

06/08/2026

LIVING ON TURTLE TIME
A freshly painted Turtle Nesting Area sign went up at the Chestnut Hill Trail parking lot this morning, and, wouldn't you know, a good-size snapper came along and began to dig a nest in the warming sandy margin of the lot. If you look closely in the upper left hand corner of the lefthand photo with the sign featured in it, the turtle captured in the righthand photo can be seen in the distance.

There is no trouble accessing the parking lot, but please stay to the west (left) of the sign and park near the trailhead signpost well away from the nesting environment.

There are several other well-known nesting areas in the park alongside trails and roads, including at the bridge at the Fullam Pond backwater pond and one at the culvert at the base of the hill at the bog a quarter mile north of Snow Brook Trail trailhead right next to Old Chesterfield Road. Today, a snapper was digging a nest at that location right beside the road.

Snappers will be a common sight for a few days now, and painted turtles are following in their wake. Please be aware that the creatures are seeking nesting spots and may be crossing the trails and roads.

06/07/2026

RIDGE AMBLERS
Ten, count 'em, folks set out on the National Trails Day hike -- Kilburn Loop, Pisgah Ridge Connector, Pisgah Ridge Trial (west leg), Town Forest Trail, and out Kilburn Road -- in Pisgah to stay fit as fiddles on a fine morning for trekking. Midway through the west section of the Pisgah Ridge Trail, all stopped to take in the view to the east, to the county's granite mascot, Mt. Monadnock.

06/03/2026

NIGHT CALLERS
Two whip-poor-wills calling in the Horseshoe parking lot area of Pisgah State Park at 9pm Tuesday night. Checked the Merlin app to be sure that the calls were indeed from these rare birds in NH. Sure enough, the app identified the calls as whip-poor-will songs.