May 20—Ten years in the making, the 1.5-mile Hooksett Riverwalk Trail is an escape into nature.
It’s also a monarch butterfly way station, a front row seat on the Merrimack River, a carefree path through meadows and wetlands and a place to retreat from work and the raw-nerve buzz of I-93.
Fans and volunteers who helped to make the trail happen gathered last week at the trailhead to celebrate its grand opening.
“It’s the best thing that’s happened to recreation in Hooskett,” said Denise Volk, who treks part or all of it with walking poles, often with her husband, and sometimes with her son and granddog.
Nice trail?
“It is! It is!” said an after-work walker sampling it for the first time.
Accessibility
The trail is just one example of towns improving outdoor access and opportunities for regular exercise by buying and assembling privately owned parcels of lands, securing permits and easements and building walkways over wet areas to create walking tours. The result is postcard snapshots and close-ups of the natural world, soundtrack free of charge.
“We really think this is a flagship of the conservation efforts of Hooksett,” said David Hess, a former resident and past member of the town’s Conservation Commission, who helped steer the project through acquisitions and rights of way.
“I think the biggest thing is it connects the two towns (Hooksett and Allenstown). It’s rare to have this much conservation land — 226 acres, 3,900 feet of frontage — on the Merrimack south of Concord,” said Hooksett Conservation Chair Cindy Robertson. The entire trail is accessible to wheelchairs and people with walkers and strollers, “which is amazing.”
If you’re lucky, you may spot nesting eagles on a small island in the river, Robertson said. Neighbors and walkers have reported deer, moose and otters, and a neighbor’s game camera caught a meandering bobcat. The area is a designated monarch way station because of the abundance of milkweed in several open fields, Robertson said.
The trail begins at a parking lot at 101 Merrimack St., Hooksett, beside the Amoskeag Rowing Club, and emerges at the Allenstown border at Ferry Street.
Hooksett contributed $115,000 toward the venture, Hess said. The rest of the roughly half-million dollars came from gifts and grants, including a $150,000 aquatic reserve grant from the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services. Manchester Sand & Gravel provided an easement at no charge. The Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests paid $60,000 for an easement to preserve the land in the future.
“It was not a difficult project to sell,” Hess said. “It brings the community together in a natural setting. Even though we’re so close to the highway, it’s a place you can escape for today. It’s an island of tranquility.”
“So far, not bad,” said a walker near a bench on the loop through the marshland, which contains several wide wooden walkways.
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