From downtown Hanover and the Green, follow Route 10 N for 4.2 miles to River Road and turn L.
Follow River Road for 0.5 mile.
Just past Purling Brooks Drive, cross Slade Brook near its confluence with the Connecticut River.
Turn immediately R into the small parking area.
What You Should Know
Today’s hike begins at the Hanover Conservancy’s Jim and Evalyn Hornig Natural Area at Lower Slade Brook. It continues on land owned by DHMC to Rt. 10, then follows Rt. 10 N to Pipers Lane. A short walk through this neighborhood ends at the Class VI section, a rough lane past town-owned land down to River Road, where you’ll enjoy river views on the way back to your car.
Bring binoculars and guides to both birds and wildflowers. Spring has arrived in all its diversity!
Foot travel only in the Natural Area.
Please pick up after your pet. Dogs must be under your strict control, especially while passing along Rt. 10 and through the Pipers Lane neighborhood.
The trail in the Natural Area is not blazed but is easy to follow. Wooden arrows and signs mark turns.
Brief Hiking Directions
Start on the trail that begins at the kiosk.
After the third waterfall, the trail bears L and uphill. After leaving the Natural Area, turn R at signs for Rt. 10.
Turn L on Rte. 10 and follow the shoulder 0.4 miles to Pipers Lane.
Turn L on Pipers Lane and follow to its maintained end. Continue on the unmaintained section to River Road.
Turn L on River Road and walk 0.5 miles to return to your car.
Slade Brook watershed
The Full Story
Take a moment to check the kiosk display and map before embarking on the trail beyond the rocks.
Slade Brook flows 4.0 miles from a wetland near Three Mile Road west to the Connecticut River, draining a largely forested 2.55 square mile watershed. Nearly a third of this watershed is permanently protected, including the 38-acre Lower Slade Brook Natural Area, Huntington Hill Wildlife Management Area, Moister Meadow, and several other parcels.
At this time of year, the dark green of stiff-stemmed horsetail, or scouring rush, is prominent. Our forebears used this primitive native plant, its tissues naturally fortified with silica, to scrub dishes.
The brook takes its name from Capt. Samuel Slade (1747-1826), a leading citizen of Hanover who came to town around 1774. He served in the Revolutionary War at Fort Ticonderoga. He, his wife Sarah, and their 13 children lived a mile north of Hanover Center (house later burned). His grandson, Samuel Thompson Slade (b. 1810) married a Huntington girl from the neighborhood. Generations of Slades are buried at Hanover Center.
Louisiana waterthrushIn May, migrating songbirds using the Connecticut River as a flyway will linger near the river in forests like this as they prepare to return to their upland breeding grounds. Listen as you walk for the Louisiana waterthrush. The male’s song is a musical, distinctive series of descending notes followed by a warble. The hilly forest surrounding Slade Brook offers prime habitat for this bird. The NH Fish & Game Department recognizes the Slade Brook corridor as among the highest quality habitat in the state.
The trail follows a gently rising path on a terrace above the brook that may have been an early tote road.
Within a few minutes’ walk from your car, the first flume comes into view and the trail heads up a short rise. A second flume appears above the first. They are at their sparkling best at this time of year.
The trail soon levels again and offers a view down onto the floodplain of the brook at R. The wet, mossy expanse hints at its value for storing water during heavy rains and snowmelt.
As you continue, the trail moves a short distance from the brook into a grove of hemlock, yellow birch, and white pine. Admire the birches’ glowing papery bark. Some, growing on the rotting remains of old fallen trees, are working on a giraffe imitation as their roots stretch down to the soil. The forest promises a cool retreat when you return on a hot summer day.
About 12 minutes’ walk from your car, you catch the sound of water again, drawing you a few feet off the trail to a log bench built by Conservancy volunteers. Here you can view the uppermost and largest waterfall. The brook tumbles down stepped ledges, hemmed in by a sheer moss-covered wall, and then sluices away to the SW through a short, narrow gorge. The entire 1,630 acre watershed drains through this slender point.
After admiring the falls, continue up the path. Stepping stones lead across the brook to a short (0.15 mile) side trail to the Purling Brooks neighborhood. The public may use this trail as far as the Natural Area boundary, but it’s not on our route today.
Jim HornigWhen a developer proposed 17 houses here, the Conservancy (then the Hanover Conservation Council) suggested an alternative that resulted in 10 homes clustered on 20 acres on the site of a former gravel pit S of the brook, with the rest of the property left intact. This solution protected the brook and its valley, allowing the public to enjoy the waterfalls and trails. The Conservancy also holds a conservation easement on the stream-side portions of the house lots on the far side. Jim Hornig, former president of the Council, was the inspiring force behind this idea, and in 2005 the Council named the Natural Area in honor of Jim (right) and his wife, Evalyn.
Watch for the sharp L turn as the trail heads away from the brook and somewhat steeply up to the height of land. About 5 minutes past the falls, you’ll see a remnant of barbed wire at R, marked with flagging, a reminder of the grazing history of this area.
The trail continues past the Conservancy boundary to a junction with signs. Turn R onto a nearly flat logging road that leads 0.25 miles to Rt. 10. An old stone wall, a reminder of this land’s former farming history, is at L.
You’re now passing over land bequeathed to the hospital that is occasionally logged for income. This becomes clear as you arrive at a wide log landing with a recently thinned (2017) red pine plantation at R.
5 minutes later, the sound of occasional traffic announces your arrival at Rt. 10, where a chain blocks the logging road. Turn L on Rt. 10 for the 10-minute walk on the shoulder of the wide state highway, a stark contrast to the historic Class VI road you’ll soon visit.
10 minutes later, turn L onto Pipers Lane. A one-room schoolhouse, known as the County Road School, stood on this corner from at least 1855 through 1892. By 1926 it had been moved across the road.
Now a dispersed residential neighborhood, this area was once part of the Piper Farm. Today, it’s something of a showcase for solar energy installations by ReVision Energy. At #2, a 8.4kW system has 30 modules mounted on the ground in two separate arrays that will produce 10,222 kWh/year of electricity. This also helps heat and cool the home with air source heat pumps. Nearby at #3, a 11.52 kW system with 36 roof-mounted modules can produce 10,587 kWh/year of electricity. A bit further down the lane, at #9, is a 10.24kW system with 32 modules that can produce nearly that amount.
This reminds us that the Dartmouth Organic Farm you may have passed on the way to River Road has a 9.8kW solar array put up by ReVision that has been operating since 2017. The array, mounted on the S side of the newer barn’s roof, is set to produce 11,000 kWh of electricity (14% of what the farm used then).
About 10 minutes’ gentle walk from Route 10, arrive at two architecturally distinct homes book-ending the last traveled portion of Pipers Lane. At L is a sleek modern home facing the beautiful Slade Brook Valley. Its open fields and forested edges are fine wildlife habitat. At R is an historic house, home in the 19th century to generations of the Smith family. Note the granite hitching post out front. (Map at R – 1892)
1892 mapThings are pretty quiet here now, but maybe less so 200 years ago. Laid out in 1816, this road connected River Road with “the County Road” (now Lyme Road/Route 10). In 1932, the steep, difficult-to-maintain lower (NW) end was finally discontinued and made subject to gates and bars. You’ll see why very shortly. By that time, it had been called Pipers Lane for decades, after the family owning the nearby farm. The town still owns the right of way over the old road, not the roadbed itself.
A few steps down the historic road, bear R at a Y, following an old stone wall at R topped with barbed wire, a reminder of open pastures of earlier times. Soon the road swings N as it follows the steep and winding path of a small drainage. This drainage, which you’ll be hopping over occasionally, may be not be impressive now, but at one time it had the power to gouge out the ravine you’re now descending. Indeed, this is a classic remnant of glacial Lake Hitchcock. This steep, narrow cut was carved out thousands of years ago by a wandering Slade Brook as it scoured through the soft lake-bottom sediments left behind by the retreating glacial lake. You can visit several other places in Hanover that exhibit this same dramatic effect: Trout Brook trail at the Mink Brook Nature Preserve, Kendal Riverfront Park, and the Rinker-Steele Natural Area.
Starting at the sharp bend in the old road, you’ll be passing the Beryl Piper Little Nature Preserve on the R for the next 1/3 mile. This 3.4 acre parcel was purchased by the Town of Hanover from the Piper family in 2004. Year-round, the looming slopes of the ravine are clothed with evergreen Christmas fern, but at this time of year, ephemeral spring wildflowers may pop up among them. Most are native, but you may find the cheerful, early yellow daisy-like flowers of introduced coltsfoot, especially in disturbed areas.
Near the bottom of the ravine you cross a forlorn heaved culvert, the bane of a road crew’s days. A sudden heavy storm uprooted it a few years ago as the old road washed out yet again.
This place might be a highway engineer’s nightmare, but it is also a dream for dogtooth violet, also known as trout lily. Its camouflaged leaves of green splotched with brown suddenly appear at this time of year, followed by single (sometimes two) nodding yellow down-ward facing lily flowers.
The old road eventually leads you to River Rd, near the junction of Grant Rd. The Connecticut itself appears beyond the houses perched just above its floodplain. Turn L for the easy ½-mile walk back to your car.
Just past #30 River Road, the river draws close. The Hanover Conservancy owns 900 feet of riverbank here, acquired in 2005 with the Lower Slade Brook Natural Area.
As you arrive back at your car, take a moment to view the confluence of tiny Slade Brook with the largest river in New England. From its headwaters in Hanover Center, its waters are now joining those of thousands of others on their way to Long Island Sound.
This Hanover Hike of the Month has been generously sponsored by
You can drive to the take-off point at Gile Hill OR walk from DHMC on medical center campus trails.
From downtown Hanover, take Lebanon St./Route 120 south to the first light after Greensboro Road, at Medical Center Drive. Turn R at the light, pass the gas station, cross the bridge, and take the first R to Gile Drive.
Turn immediately L into the gravel parking area encircled by large stones, and park. This is your starting point.
Today’s hike is a loop through the Mink Brook Nature Preserve and adjoining Gile Hill area, encircling the 800’ rocky knob highlighted on the map at R.
What You Should Know
This is a moderately challenging hike, if only because it uses every sort of path you can imagine – from wide and paved to narrow and rocky, flat to steep – and everything in between. Wear sturdy shoes!
You’ll pass through surroundings that vary from a deep hemlock forest to sculpted grassy slopes between apartment buildings. It’s good to know such wild places are so close at hand.
Dogs are welcome but must be leashed while walking through Gile Hill and must always be under your close control. Please pick up after your pet.
Bicycles are not permitted in the Mink Brook Nature Preserve.
Hiking Directions
To begin your hike, walk to the paved road to the Gile Hill development and turn L onto the paved sidewalk just beyond. Follow the sidewalk as it crosses the access road several times and continues down past the apartment buildings. When the sidewalk ends, continue a short distance to White Pine Oval. Take the nearer end of the oval – your destination is a crosswalk at the far end that leads you to a paved path. Along the way, notice a “wall” of stones inside a gabion cage, a stark contrast to the native boulders visible just beyond and the early stone walls you’ll observe later on this trip.
Walk past the wooden rail fence to a crosswalk where you’ll take the wide paved path to Buck Road. Just as it curves L, note a steep sided trench at R, built to capture stormwater runoff from the paved areas and roofs. Before 2006, when the Gile Hill development was built, this entire hillside was a steep, forested jumble of boulders. It presented such an engineering challenge that it was the field site focus of a regional conference on stormwater management techniques.
The paved path ends at Buck Road near Route 120. Turn L and head down the hill on Buck Road, which was once the main road linking Lebanon and Hanover before 120 was built. In a few minutes, Buck Road swings L just before the narrow bridge that once carried it over Mink Brook.
A few paces beyond the turn, look for the Wheelock Trail just before a fire hydrant.
Named for Eleazar Wheelock, founder of Dartmouth College (more about him in a minute), the blue-blazed trail begins as a narrow, rocky path threading among rocks and roots close to Mink Brook. You’re greeted by the sound of the tumbling brook and the cool sweet air of the protective forest, a stark change from Buck Road and Gile Hill. The Upper Valley Land Trust owns this land on the south side of the brook; you’ll pass beneath UVLT’s office perched at the top of the bank. UVLT was instrumental in protecting this parcel and the larger Mink Brook Nature Preserve in 1999, working hand in hand with the Hanover Conservancy (then known as the Hanover Conservation Council).
Five minutes from Buck Road, look for a rocky ledge on the far side of the brook where the water spills over a small falls. Amid the foliage above, you can make out the stone wall of an old mill structure. Watch your step among the tangle of roots across the trail. There’s a better view of the falls from below. You’re looking at the reason why Dartmouth College is in Hanover and not somewhere else!
1778 map of SW Hanover showing Mink Brook and college and Wheelock holdingsIn the late 1760s, when Rev. Wheelock was searching for a town to locate his college, colonial governor John Wentworth and the proprietors of newly-founded Hanover and Lebanon joined together to offer him 2,000 acres surrounding this brook. This, the largest stream in Hanover, has an 18 square mile watershed, thus guaranteeing a good flow, and this falls offered a promising spot for a grist mill. This was essential gear for grinding grain to make flour to bake bread to feed hungry young men. The deal was sealed, and in 2019, Dartmouth celebrated its 250th anniversary, all thanks to Mink Brook. (After a first mill failed, Israel Woodward built this mill for Wheelock in 1771-1772).
But we digress. The Wheelock Trail continues into a cool glen shaded by hemlocks and becomes a wider path. Soon it heads up to a break in the canopy and bears R across land owned by Wheelock Terrace. Here, the sewer line passes under your feet on its way to the wastewater treatment plant at the mouth of Mink Brook.
Enter the woods once again at a small sign (TRAIL ->). In a few moments you’ll encounter a low stone wall marking an early boundary; today it announces that you have arrived at the Hanover Conservancy’s Mink Brook Nature Preserve. A remnant of barbed wire clings to a tree at L, and HC’s even more contemporary boundary marker, a 4’ plastic square, hangs on a tree at R. This stone wall marks the ancient property line between the 300 acre Wheelock parcel and the 1000 acre Dartmouth College parcel of land. That easterly property line makes a series of erratic westerly jogs as it runs north over the top of the hill and descends the northerly side. This reflects the fact that in 1771, after Wheelock had established his first mill on Mink Brook, it was found to be located not on Dartmouth property as the College Trustees had intended, but rather on Wheelock’s private property. Therefore, to appease the Trustees, the original property line was adjusted westerly, giving more land to the College.
Continue as the path becomes level and wide among the hemlocks. The brook’s floodplain may be flat, but you’re aware of steep, high slopes both across the brook and to your L. Soon they begin to crowd the path as steep ravines appear at L. What’s going on here? You are actually hiking along what was once the bottom of glacial Lake Hitchcock. This frigid lake covered the Connecticut River valley from Middletown, CT to Littleton, NH after the river’s waters were trapped by a dam of debris dropped by the glacier as it melted. Thousands of years later that dam broke, leaving us with the beautiful winding Connecticut River of today. While the lake was in place, however, soil washing in from the uplands settled on the lake bottom. In still water, such as that quieted by a veneer of ice, the finest particles of clay sink to the bottom. When the lake drained, Mink Brook’s braided waters flowed down through the newly exposed sediments, slicing deep channels through them on their way to meet the river. These old channels are now the steep ravines that surround you.
About 15 minutes’ walk from Buck Road, you reach a beautiful rocky gorge. The trail briefly becomes indistinct on the slope but picks up later. Take a moment to visit the water’s edge and discover a lovely pool behind a low dam. This dam was built in the 1920s to create a swimming hole for a seasonal cottage once owned by the Tanzi family. The cottage is now gone, but a nearby private residence remains on the opposite bank. Continue west on the Wheelock Trail.
Four minutes’ walk past the gorge a flat terrace appears at L; this is part of the old glacial lake bed, formed when the lake had partially dropped.
Two minutes later, you arrive at a dramatic spot where an enormous boulder guards the brook. The footing is tricky here. Climb below the boulder to admire its sheer face, but please resist the temptation to climb it. A look toward the brook may reveal woody debris tossed here by high water. A nearby tree shows the scars of two strands of barbed wire, two and three feet off the ground, presumably set 150 years ago to protect grazing sheep from falling into the water.
Just beyond the huge boulder is a very old stone wall with hemlocks growing from it. Scan the hillside at L to marvel at another partial wall of larger boulders. This land has clearly been used for many, many years.
Five minutes’ walk past the boulder brings you to a recently abandoned stream channel. Before Tropical Storm Irene, Mink Brook ran through this now nearly dry sandy area, but the August 2011 surge tore a new channel slightly north, where it now flows except in times of very high water. The trail heads toward the log crossing built in 2009. Just before the bridge are signs of erosion that began with Irene and continues today – a hemlock hangs out over the water, its roots exposed, and on the far side, the brook is scouring the north bank. Nearby at L, ferns occupy the swale of yet an earlier abandoned channel. This is a pretty busy place!
At the log crossing, you have a choice of exploring trails on the north side of the brook. If you do, please cross the log one at a time. A sign at L indicates that you have come from Buck Road and are headed toward Lebanon. Continue straight on the Wheelock Trail; it soon begins to swing away from the brook.
Just past a dead tree at R, look L for bright pink “whiskers” marking a study plot of Trillium. This study, conducted by the Biodiversity Committee of the Hanover Conservation Commission, is following survival of this native wildflower under heavy deer browse pressure.
A few steps further, a trail comes in at R. Take this for a few yards back to the streambank. Plans for a 32-lot housing development on this land included a road and bridge across the brook at this point. In 1999, to save this land as a refuge for the community – both human and wild – the Hanover Conservancy and Upper Valley Land Trust worked together to purchase the property. Over 500 households contributed, with Dartmouth College providing the major gift that ultimately made it possible to protect this land. Today, the 112-acre preserve is owned and managed by the Hanover Conservancy with help from volunteers. Conservation restrictions held by UVLT guide the preserve’s management.
Return to the Wheelock Trail, trying to visualize this place as a residential subdivision and yourself standing on a paved road leading to driveways, garages, mailboxes, landscaped yards, and houses with dogs and cats.
A few steps bring you to another junction, where the Wheelock Trail turns R and crosses a drainage over stones placed to allow both feet and water to pass. Here, you stay straight and continue on the orange-blazed Trout Brook Trail, a flat and gently winding pine-needle strewn path.
At R, pockets of ferny wetlands adorn the forest floor. It is easy to imagine how useful they are as sponges during heavy rains, holding back stormwater and protecting the brook from flooding and erosion.
Five minutes’ walk from the would-be subdivision bridge, arrive at another junction where a trail at R leads to Sachem Village. A small sign reminds that bicycles are not permitted at the Mink Brook Nature Preserve due to a condition placed on the College’s major gift that protected the land. The trail begins to climb as the mild music of falling water is heard.
Two minutes further, arrive at a small but picturesque waterfall on Trout Brook. At its foot are twin boulders, each wearing a rakish wig of moss and ferns. During a study of wild brook trout habitat by the NH Fish and Game Department and Trout Unlimited in 2012, biologists agreed that the protected forest in this area provides extremely high quality habitat for wild brook trout. (The trout are small, and deserve to live and grow another day.)
Keep the brook company for a short while, but watch for orange blazes as the trail swings L and heads up and away. Through the trees at L above is a flattish area where millet was grown by the Stone family when this land was part of their farm in the 1960s.
The Trout Brook Trail now heads steadily up, with Trout Brook singing away below to the R.
Seven minutes’ walk from the waterfall, you reach the height of land on the trail and emerge, blinking in the sudden change of light, into the clearing for a huge powerline. Needless to say, you’ve found the southern boundary of the nature preserve, which is also the boundary between Hanover and Lebanon.
Take a moment to adjust to the sharp contrast and then continue on the path, which bears L and down toward the power line. Coarse rock and gravel mark the route, which soon plunges up again, sometimes quite steeply, through clover, daisies, briars, coltsfoot, and 5’ white pines. It’s difficult to imagine that this area once looked exactly like what you just hiked. Replacing towering hemlocks with towering metal poles makes a big difference to everything beneath them!
About 10 minutes from the woodland’s edge, you arrive at another height of land affording a view of an electric transformer station below at R. Continue on the path, heading slightly L toward a gap in the trees and a yellow gate. Just beyond the gate is Trailhead Lane; turn R to reach the parking area where you left your car. If you walked from DHMC, turn R again at Medical Center Drive.