Trescott Trails: Knapp Road & Ascutney View

HIKE DIRECTIONS – full PDF

Driving Directions

• From Downtown Hanover and the Green, drive east onto East Wheelock St. and up the hill 1.7 miles to the junction of E. Wheelock, Grasse, and Trescott Rds. The Balch Hill trailhead will be at L.   Bear R to continue on Trescott Rd and drive 1.2 more miles to a sharp bend and the Trescott gate.
• From Etna village, turn W onto Trescott Rd and drive 1.3 miles to the Trescott gate at bend in road.
• Park at the marked trailhead parking area. Please do not block the gate.

What You Should Know

• This is the perfect hike for Mud Season, when most trails can be too soft and vulnerable as frost leaves the ground.
• Welcome to your water source! Drinking water for much of Hanover and for Dartmouth College comes from these lands, so special rules apply for recreational use.
• Check the kiosk display to acquaint yourself with these rules and pick up a trail guide.
• Dogs are welcome but must be leashed at all times; please pick up after your pet.
• You may encounter forestry vehicles; they have the right of way.
• Plan on 1 ¼- 1 ½ hours; longer if you spend time enjoying the views.
• Many hiking routes in the Trescott lands make use of historic and/or logging roads.

Brief Hiking Directions

• Take the short path at R of the kiosk to reach Knapp Road
• Turn L on Knapp Rd and walk past Parker Reservoir, the Four Corners, and up hill to a junction where the road flattens out.
• Turn L and soon L again on a path through a pine plantation to the viewpoint.
• Return the way you came.

Full Hiking Directions

• After visiting the kiosk, take the short path to the R that leads around the fence. This takes you to Knapp Road, where you turn L to begin your walk. Laid out on Nov. 13, 1793, the road named for Lt. Peter Knapp of Hanover’s Revolutionary War-era militia. You will pass the site of his homestead.
• After 5 minutes’ gentle downhill walk, Parker Reservoir comes into view. A sign at the road’s edge asks you to remain on the road as you walk through the reservoir’s 250’ protective buffer zone. To safeguard the water supply, the public (dogs included) is not permitted within 250’ of the water (or ice) except on Knapp Road. State law protects these waters.
• Built in 1924 by damming Camp Brook, Parker Reservoir is the second in a string of three reservoirs that collect water to send to Hanover homes. The oldest and lowest is Fletcher Reservoir, near Reservoir and Grasse Roads. Together, they hold 425 million gallons of water. The third is the Hanover Center Reservoir, in the Mink Brook watershed. Its water is diverted to flow into the Parker Reservoir.
• From this point, look ahead for an open area on the hillside above. This is your destination.
• Continue on Knapp Rd below the earthen dam and cross Camp Brook. Note the semi-circular stone structure on the R, part of the early earthworks. An interpretive sign nearby illustrates the dam’s construction and explains forest management to protect water quality.
• Camp Brook flows out of a concrete spillway in the earthen dam near some venerable maples. One wonders if these might once have been dooryard trees for a farmhouse that once stood nearby. All structures of the ten farms that once existed on this land were removed by 1912.
• Continue on Knapp Rd; 15-20 minutes from your car, you’ll reach Mason’s Four Corners. Look for a sign posted on a tree at R indicating your location (photo at R)

• Occasionally serving as a log landing, the Four Corners was once a major intersection. Here, the historic Wolfeboro Road crosses Knapp Road. Colonial Governor John Wentworth proposed this road in 1770 so he could attend commencement exercises at Dartmouth College. He and his party supposedly traveled it from his home in Wolfeboro in 1772. The historic road is easily viewed looking W; to the E, it is obscured by brush.

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  At the NW corner of this intersection stood the one-room District #4 schoolhouse (1807). Lt. Knapp’s home (c. 1793) stood across the way on the NE corner. Knapp was one of three school district commissioners for District 4. You can find the remains of his house’s cellar hole by looking (carefully!) through the brush.  By 1855, J. J. Mason lived here, followed by Charles Mason by 1892. The 160-acre Mason Farm had a 100-tree apple orchard and 200-tree sugarbush. Mason also kept 12 dairy cows and 70 Merino sheep. The water company purchased his farm by 1903 for $4000.

• After imagining the busy neighborhood that once existed here, continue up Knapp Rd. In a few minutes another sign at R marks the Poor Farm East Trail to Dogford Rd.
• Continue up Knapp Rd and reach the top of a small rise. Look for a cellar hole at R among a clump of trees near a large maple. Views are beginning to open up.
• The Town Poor Farm stood not far from this spot, on the W side of Knapp Road. Several large foundations, a well, and a curious piece of farm equipment can still be seen. In 1840, the Town of Hanover purchased the James Tisdale Farm for $4250 to provide a place where the community’s orphans and other unfortunates could live and work to help support themselves. Unlike other towns, Hanover did not send its poor to the Grafton County farm when it opened in 1864, keeping this farm operating until 1903, when it was sold to the water company for $4000. Interpretive signage provides more insights into the farm.
• Is your dog still on its leash? Give yourself a gold star and know that there are porcupines nearby.
• Having caught your breath, continue your march up Knapp Rd. The road is lined with stately old maples, but the hillsides beyond are partly open and are being replanted. These lands experienced major blowdowns during the 2007 Patriot’s Day Windstorm. Two million board feet of logs and 3,100 cords of pulp were salvaged. This storm hit heaviest in the plantations, leaving natural stands largely unaffected.  The forest management plan calls for moving toward more natural, uneven-aged stands rather than even-aged plantations, although some spruce plantations have recently been planted nearby on the hillside.
• Knapp Rd now climbs more steeply. Pass over two sets of grates covering water diversion channels to protect the steep road from erosion and protect the reservoirs below from sediment. The grates were paid for with a grant from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service.
• Note the stone walls that follow the road in this area. The small size of the stones used to build them is a clue that the nearby land was cultivated at one time. One imagines the Poor Farm’s residents picking stones from among their potatoes and adding them to the walls.
• At a little over half an hour from your car, Knapp Rd levels out. Look for a sign on a tree at 11 o’clock. Before heading to the hike’s big reward (the view!) take a moment to visit another historic site.
• Continue straight on Knapp Rd for 90-100 paces toward a log landing. About 20 paces off the road at R in the woods is another cellar hole. This one is L-shaped.
• Return to the intersection and turn R (west), taking care to stay on the road, not the skid trail at R.
• After about 100 paces, turn L toward a gap in the pines.
• Walk a short distance through a pine plantation, being thinned. The path brings you to an open hillside with dramatic views. We suggest taking a few steps to the left into the field for the best view, taking care not to trample young red pines.
• The panorama before you is among the most beautiful in Hanover. Far below is Parker Reservoir; you can pick out Knapp Rd curving around on the SW side (your route back to your car).
• Mt. Ascutney dominates the scene, of course.  At R in the near distance is Velvet Rocks. Ski areas in Vermont are also visible farther west.
• Resolve right now to return in mid-October! The many sugar and red maples in this scene put on their own spectacular show at that time of year.
• After you’ve inhaled the view, return the way you came.
• Walk back up through the plantation and turn R on the far side of the pines
• Turn R again onto Knapp Rd. As you walk down the hill, enjoy views of some of Etna’s surviving high fields and pastures, visible at L. These are remnants of the much more open landscape of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, when the native northern hardwood/white pine forests had been cleared for agriculture and thousands of sheep, later cattle, grazed on these hills. In the days before the Civil War, Hanover was one of the four top sheep towns in NH (with Walpole, Lyme, and Lebanon).
• Knapp Road takes you past Parker Reservoir and back to your car.

Learn more about the Trescott Water Company Lands  and download the most up to date trail map.

March 2016, revised July 2020