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| Grafton Pond on a cloudy day |
The Forest Society's Grafton Pond Reservation in Grafton NH is over 900 acres of forest that includes most of the shoreline of beautiful Grafton Pond. There are more than a dozen small islands dotting the pond, and only three man-made structures can be seen around the entire shoreline thanks to the protection efforts of many groups including the Forest Society, the Grafton Pond Land Trust, and the Upper Valley Land Trust. Grafton Pond is truly a wild and undeveloped place, where moose can be seen munching on aquatic plants in the early mornings, and loons call to one another over the water. Because it's so unique to find an almost entirely undeveloped pond in Central NH, Grafton Pond is also a popular place with paddlers and nature enthusiasts. In recent years, many people have "discovered" the pond and on sunny summer weekends it's now so busy with visitors that the parking area overflows many times over and the loon families barely have a secluded nook left to hide in. What can be done to keep Grafton Pond from being "loved to death"? This is the question that the Friends of Grafton Pond, a small group of nearby residents, volunteers, and stakeholders have been asking for several years.
One thing that the Friends of Grafton Pond is doing to mediate impacts recreational use is to participate in the NH Lake Host Program. This program
is administered by New Hampshire Lakes Association, and strives to reduce the
spread of invasive aquatic plant species in New Hampshire’s water bodies.
The Friends of Grafton Pond has been able to hire two paid
lake host interns to work the majority of busy weekend and holiday hours at the
pond, and will also have volunteer lake hosts filling in the gaps and helping
out at especially busy times. Lake hosts
will greet boaters as they enter and exit near the pond’s boat ramp, and check
canoes, kayaks, and other boats for pieces of “tag along” aquatic vegetation. They’ll also provide visitor outreach about
loon conservation, packing out all trash, and other recreational
guidelines as a means of reducing impacts to wildlife and the sensitive shoreline habitat.
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| Lake Host Heidi Hutchinson teaches kayakers how to inspect their boats for invasive aquatic plants. |
To date, Grafton Pond does not have any known invasive
aquatic plants, but many other lakes in New Hampshire do have infestations of
plants like variable milfoil and fanwort.
Boaters spread these invasive plants when pieces of vegetation hitchhike
on rudders, paddles, boat trailers, and propellers. When they do get established, these invasive
plants can spread quickly and completely choke out all other vegetation,
changing the aquatic ecosystem drastically and even making recreational boating
difficult. They are also almost
impossible to eradicate once established, so prevention is definitely the
key!
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| A new "iron ranger" donation box next to the kiosk will help pay for stewardship activities at Grafton Pond, including the Lake Host program. Land Management interns Will Walker (left) and Eric Foley (right) pose next to the ranger after installing it. |
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| Mike Barskey (lake host) conducts an inspection of a visitor's canoe |
Lake host interns Heidi Hutchinson and Mike Barskey have
already been hard at work at Grafton Pond this season, assisted by a handful of dedicated volunteers. Over Memorial Day weekend, they conducted
over 300 boat inspections! That’s over
300 people who received information about not only aquatic invasives, but also
appropriate recreational behavior on our beautiful, wild pond. We are confident that in the long run, this
outreach will help keep the pond as pristine possible – keeping invasive weeds
out, limiting trash and other dumping, reducing inappropriate activities, and
protecting the pond’s loon families and other wildlife. If you are interested in supporting this
program or becoming a volunteer lake host yourself, please contact Carrie
Deegan at
cdeegan@forestsociety.org
or 603-224-9945.
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| Candis Whitney (land steward, left) and Mike Barskey wait at the boat ramp for visitors to arrive. |
Land Steward Kamal Nath has been exploring High Watch Reservation (which includes most of Green Mountain and Hanson Top) for over a year now, and last fall he flagged a new line out to Hanson Top using both what remained of the old trail, and some new sections to avoid wet areas. After SPNHF staff approved the "new" trail layout, we scheduled a workday to clear the corridor and install directional signage. Thankfully, we got a beautiful day for our workday this week, and the work went smoothly. Nine volunteers and staff members climbed to the Hanson Top trailhead (near the summit of Green Mountain) and cleared and marked the new half-mile trail. The view from the ledges at Hanson Top made a perfect lunch spot, and we celebrated with a group photo holding the Hanson Top sign. If you do make it to the top of Green Mountain, it is well worth the extra (easy) half-mile jaunt out to Hanson Top to enjoy the view from these spectactular ledges.
