Three Ponds Trail Reservation
Rumney, NH
August 16, 2015
I’ve been reminiscing about a recent ramble at a place called Three Ponds Trail. This New Hampshire State-owned property is a beautiful forested garden, a 2.9 mile loop, located off Stinson Lake Road in Rumney NH, which places it at the lower edge of the White Mountain National Forest.
Connected with Stinson Lake by Sucker Brook, the name “Three Ponds” is a bit confusing… to me at least. I guess, there’s a “Lower” pond (2½ acres), which I never actually saw or maybe didn’t recognize as a pond, a “Middle” pond (13 acres), which is one of the property’s main attractions, and “Upper” pond (12 acres), which is very pretty, but not as conspicuous as “Middle” pond from the loop I took; you have to detour from the loop to see it. There are actually several smaller ponds in the area, most of them, no doubt, beaver ponds made from the damming of Sucker Brook or Brown Brook.
Foxglove Pond is more to the north, but it isn’t located within the bounds of this immediate property (or so, I’m assuming; I didn’t pass by it). Foxglove does run along the Three Ponds Trail, and it’s connected to the “Upper” pond by a brook. Honestly, though I wish these ponds had better names, I’m not very concerned about how many “ponds” there are. As far as I’m concerned, on my ramble, there was one pond, the so-called “Middle” pond, a rather unfortunate name for such a beautiful body of water.
The naming of ponds aside, at the risk of sounding sentimental, I found the property and all its features enchanting, beyond the merely polite use of the word. Enchanted; an enchanted or mystic wooded garden. The place surprised me with its beauty; its features, and no doubt, the arrangement of those features, touched me deeply, even during what I would consider its “off-season,” most of its most beautiful wildflowers blooms are passed by now. I’m not ready to compare this place the Garden of Eden, but, instead, though I’ve been to some dramatically landscaped properties, there are very few places that have moved me emotionally the way this place has.
“No Guru, no method, no teacher
Just you and I and nature
And the Father and the
Son and the Holy Ghost
In the garden wet with rain.”
- From Van Morrison’s “In the Garden”
I’m always delighted to find a new or unexpected wildflower or bird or insect or even a landscape feature on my rambles, but it’s unusual to be drawn in by the structure of the entire place, by the poetic presentation it offers to me. What archetype or series of archetypes was I exposed to here that caused this feeling of spiritual enchantment? The wildflowers I found here were not unusual for this area, and there were few birds to speak of.
Instead, I think, it was the beauty of the underlying spirit of the place itself “speaking” through the catalogue of physical things. It was the arrangement of the brooks and the ponds and moss-covered shores, and perhaps the fact that a recent rain filled those brooks and ponds to give them a voice, a freshness of life and visual appeal and that covered the petals and leaves of the dewdrop and trilliums with a glimmering drops of dew; perhaps it was the sun shining through the tree canopy and against the pond’s quietly glistening surface; perhaps, I was simply in a mood to accept all of this? Perhaps, I needed all of this at that moment? Perhaps my imagination, open and willing, fused with the spontaneous beauty of the landscape? I needed something, wanted something and Nature fulfilled that need, that desire? If I rambled here on a different day, would I have been, could I have been less enchanted? Could it have been the surprise of what I found and felt that affected me, so that I wouldn’t feel the same way on a second visit?
If any of this is true, that I was merely open to or needing what Nature offered to me, for instance, then how do I describe this place? Photos or descriptions of the flora and fauna wouldn’t accurately describe my emotional reaction. The two places that immediately come to mind where I felt the same enchantedness are Kennedy Pond in Westford, during a predawn ramble, when I heard the slap of a beaver tail from the fog-covered water. The other place is Tophet Swamp in the Oak Hill Conservation Land in Littleton, Massachusetts. Thoughts of Dante’s Divine Comedy and the great fall to purgatory circulated through my mind as I descended into the dim, former bed of a glacial waterfall.
Three Ponds Trail
So, here I am, parking off Stinson Lake Road, anticipating a ramble through this property, unaware that it would affect me differently from most other properties. The path enters the woods immediately and ascends gradually, crossing over a brook. Three Ponds is officially described as being set in a “very wild and beautiful basin between the high slopes of Carr Mountain [West] and Mount Kineo [East].” I like the idea of being nestled within a dramatic landscape of a basin, hugged by two mountains.
Mount Kineo Trail cuts off to the right, but I continue straight. The right side of the trail ascends gradually. Along the slight embankment, I see painted trillium, the red, oval fruit having already formed from within the three pointed sepals. The three, wide, attractive leaves are a bit ragged by now, insects having torn pieces away or marked them with holes. The trillium is surrounded by hayscented fern, wild oats, hobblebush and striped maple. Farther along, I come to a patch of Clintonia, the weight of three or four deep blue berries causing the six-inch long leafless stalk to bend. This stem rises from between the two leaves, which, like the trillium leaves, are a bit worn.
The sight of these two plants brings to mind their beautiful springtime blooms, as if that image is inherent in the plant itself rather than in my imagination. And, in a way it is; until I saw these plants, I wasn’t thinking of that springtime bloom! Objects can mean nothing to us, or they could be pregnant with powerful images that could change our mood, and I suppose, if powerful enough, even change our lives. But, now I see the attractive red and blue fruits, and this also brings to mind the productivity of these flowers, known to most as belonging to spring; but in reality, they are as important to autumn as they are to spring, for autumn is the climax of their growing season, and were it not for the importance of the fruit I see today, there would be no need for the bloom I appreciate much earlier in the year.
As I approach a trail that cuts off to the left, leading to Carr Mountain, I see painted trillium mixed with Clintonia, the very pretty red and blue berries rising in close proximity. Starflower is also growing here, the more inconspicuous, dusty-blue fruit rising above the star-shaped whorl of leaves. I pass Carr Mountain Trail and come to a moist area, where I see turtlehead and jewelweed along with grasses. The turtlehead is in bloom, the pink-tinged white turtle-head-shaped blooms crowded at the top of the main stem. It suggests a floating log crowded with painted turtles, a common sight in our New England ponds. A small toad jumps across the path in front of me and rests at the edge of the path, just below the turtleheads.
Just beyond the turtlehead, on drier ground, I come to a patch of rough-stemmed goldenrod, each cluster of flowers arranged in a loose six-to-eight-inch spike. The leaves are rather large, saw-toothed and taper to a dull point and gradually to the stem.
I walk across a large, wooden bridge that crosses over Sucker Brook. This is a forested area and the rocky Sucker Brook is flowing fairly rapidly due to a recent period of rain. I stand on the bridge and look upstream: the moss covered boulders, obviously, dug up and smoothed by the water’s power of erosion, are strewn throughout the bed of the brook. Hemlocks, white pines, birches and hobblebush overhang these rocks, giving the brook its woodland feel. I turn right and follow an old logging road that runs parallel with Sucker Brook. Sucker Brook crosses the path at various points along the way.
The path is very muddy here, and I have trouble imagining what this might be like just after the snow melts, when the brook would be running high. I come to still more trillium leaves. But, a closer look reveals that the red, ridged fruit, shaped more like a ridged diamond than an smooth oval is drooping beneath the leaves on a three-inch stem and between the same three pointed sepals as the painted trillium. This is nodding trillium, another member of the family. While the bloom of painted or purple trillium rises above the three leaves, nodding trillium’s bloom, as the name suggests, nods below the leaves. I would think this is because ants pollinate its blooms, and though I haven’t been able to verify this (I’ve sat for hours watching the plants, trying to find out), I have read that ants disseminate the seeds from these angled pods.
The path winds along Sucker Brook, with random views of the brook at intervals and the soothing sounds of water surging over and between the rocks at the bed of the brook. I pass more painted and nodding trillium and Clintonia and turtlehead and hobblebush. Moss-covered rocks border the path, and where I pass beneath hemlocks, the forest darkens just as the path narrows. It’s a beautiful walk. I come to another bridge where Sucker Brook crosses the path and beside it is a mound of purple-tinted scat. The bear that left this haphazard mound seems to have consumed a lot of blackberries, the seeds and some entire berries visible within the mound of scat. I’m not sure how many hours of eating/digestion this scat represents, but the number of blackberry seeds would seem to represent a bucket full.
Hobblebush’s red berries against the attractive heart-shaped leaves adorn the edge of this boardwalk. And, off to the right, a section of a hemlock tree is adorned by the clean white, delicate-looking fungus known as Angel’s Wings (Pleurocybella porrigens). The path ascends through this mixed forest. I pass another moist area with more turtlehead, ferns and whorled wood aster, the scraggly white blooms abundantly out. Shiny leaves of goldthread and the twin, white-striped leaves of partridgeberry cover the ground, and I see a few lady’s slipper leaves and stems. From here the path approaches “Middle” pond.
New England aster grows from within a moist thicket along with more turtlehead and painted trillium on drier ground, nearer to the path. I move off the path for a clear view of the pond through the trees and pass by the fairly common pond-side mountain holly, its rich cherry-like fruits ripe now. This shrub is at its most uniquely beautiful, I believe, when these berries are ripe. It might be superficially confused with winterberry or chokecherry, but, the color of these berries, dangling singly from the two-inch long stems, are a duller red, or as Louis Bliss Gillet more accurately wrote in “Where the Sires of Nature Hide” published in The Sewanee Review (January, 1921), “…upon a graceful sapling hung with those lovely scarlet berries of the mountain holly then all bloomed over with a bluish purple darkling them strangely in harmony with the forest glooms.” In the shade, these berries are dark and inconspicuous, but in the sunlight these uniquely-colored berries add a special character to any pond. And, here there are several of these shrubs at this pond’s shores, more than I typically see.
At the turn of the century, armfuls of mountain holly, along with mountain laurel and trailing arbutus, were commonly collected by thousands of New Englanders collecting the flowers for winter balls, weddings or church festivals. This activity threatened to extirpate these plants. By the early 1900s, calls for protection helped stave off total destruction of these beautiful shrubs.
I turn from the mountain holly shrub and look out toward “Middle” pond, over the water, Whitcher Hill (2,565 feet) visible in the distance, an important aspect of this view. This is a beautiful pond, a simple woodland pond, but spectacular in its simplicity. The spruces on the near shore, the pines and hemlocks bordering the glistening surface of the water and the fog-shrouded hill beyond. “Beyond!” A word pregnant with meaning; that fog-shrouded hill is beyond; beyond the immediate scenery, beyond the present, beyond that which I can touch…or feel…beyond my sadness and happiness? Beyond the immediacy of my life?
I turn to the left and see, at the edge of the pond, an extension of marsh, tree kill and no doubt, trees taken down by beavers. Each way I turn offers a different perspective, each perspective with a different meaning, a meaning I discover within myself and impose outwardly. I’ve read that this pond is 14 feet deep at its deepest point. But, for me, it runs much deeper than that. Heal-all is on the path, the cylindrical flower heads still in its purple bloom. I walk ahead and see another view of the pond, a different view; the distant hill is gone now, and I see only the present. A different meaning altogether.
The narrow path ahead edges the water, only a narrow shrub layer between. I know there’s a forest shelter above me, and I visited it, but I choose so ignore it. This pond with its meaning is my focus. I follow the path and see a simple blossom with five petals. It looks like the single bloom of goldthread. And, there are some goldthread leaves nearby. I kneel down and look closely at it. The deep green, heart-shaped leaves and the fact that this bloom is fresh while goldthreads are already to seed, tells me that this is dewdrop.
Dewdrop leaves cover wide sections of ground between the path and the water. The blooms, different in structure from those of goldthread, the long white stamens projecting from between the leaves like whiskers, seem to pop up through these leaves on inch-long stems. Mixed in with the dewdrop leaves bunchberry is showing off its bright red clusters of berries. The combination is magically beautiful. I go back and forth from views of the pond, to a mix of mountain holly and spruces, and at one opening to the water grow witherod or wild raison, a member of the viburnum clan and leatherleaf. And, another view, of the hill beyond, a corner view, along the edge of the shore partly walled by dense clusters of trees, is breathtaking. Then, I come to a narrower view of the spruces and hemlocks sweeping upward in the background, on the far side of the water, reflected in the ridged surface of the pond.
I pass a very pretty purple-stemmed aster, standing four or five feet tall, the large light violet blooms with many long rays pointing out singly on long stems. It’s tucked within a thicket and rises over a prostrate log. I continue on the narrow, worn Indian foot path, passed ferns and spruces, goldenrod and hobblebush. I pass low-bush blueberry and forever along this path are bunchberry leaves backing scarlet-berried clusters and heart-shaped dewdrop leaves with beautiful white blooms scattered about like stars fallen from the sky; and goldthread leaves mixed in, dew-soaked and glistening. Partridgeberry leaves and some sphagnum moss and a couple small mushrooms are mixed in as well. And, even Clintonia and starflower shows up as I move forward, toward the hill beyond. Some cucumber root, the green berries above its leaves, and Carex folliculate, standing about two feet tall, is scattered along the path. This Carex is a graceful member of the sedge family, the small bunches of pointed or inflated flower sacs well-spaced along the main stem.
Still farther along, I see bugleweed, still in bloom, the white flowers whorled tightly around the stem at the base of the leaves. And mixed in with some wintergreen leaves, I see a mottled green frog. It’s sitting still, perhaps determining the danger it might be in, maybe deciding its next jump? Or, perhaps, it’s content to just sit still and enjoy the serenity of this peaceful place.
The path widens where it leaves the pond and leads deeper into the forest and then back toward a wide marsh at the near-side of the pond. I face the marsh and the water beyond. Across the pond are several ghost spruce trees above the water, the white limbs bare of all leaves, standing like skeletons, a remembrance of things past.
I return to the path and within this mixed forest, I see more bunchberry and hobblebush and some young mountain ash and sarsaparilla leaves. I reach two sign, the first points to the left:
“Three Ponds Trail. NH 118 Warren 4.9”
The second, points to the right:
“Donkey Hill Cut-Off. Kineo Trail. Stinson Lake Road”
I take the Donkey Hill Cut-Off Trail to the right. I walk under dense spruce trees, passed a beaver cut tree, and I reach an open woodland marsh with dense shrubs and felled trees, the shadows and subtle variety of color is breathtaking. I melt into this marsh, my existing thoughts cleared, distracted by the natural complexity, the intricacy of the form and color of my immediate surroundings. It’s the hug of a loved-one.
I see what looks like stout goldenrod, with a stout, reddish stem and recurved bracts beneath the petals. I wouldn’t think it would be so close to this wet area, however. An open pond cuts through the sun-soaked wetland thicket, and the area is backed by spruces and pines. Touches of pink steeplebush and white meadowsweet add their colors to the varied shades of green and brown. The long sword-shaped grass or sedge leaves against the deeper green and rounded leaves of nearby willow and sweet gale create a dramatic contrast. I sit and look out at the dramatic landscape before me. A dragonfly darts by, then another. They hover for several moments before adjusting their position. I look at one of them through my binoculars. It’s a Canada Darner, one of the larger dragonflies, with a blue-stripped abdomen and bluish-green eyes. These dragonflies seldom land, and in late summer, they’re often seen in feeding swarms.
I look to my right and see white berries against a mat of small, deep green leaves. I move for a closer look and see the wide-spreading patch of snowberry covering the ascending edge on the woodland side of the path, the large white berries standing out vividly against the leaves. The alternate, stemless leaves are well-spaced along a long, narrow, gray branch. The branches seem arranged in a series of independent, but tangled braids sliding down the slope of this small rise. These leaves are shaped like small, green teardrops and they appear merely stuck to the branch, it being hard to determine what holds them in place. This ephemeral arrangement, seen only on closer inspection, belies the denseness of this patch of green as seen from a distance. It’s a beautiful adornment to this path-side ridge.
I move ahead and see purple-tinged bunchberry leaves and some dewdrop flowers mixed in with the snowberry leaves. The color combination is spectacular – the purple and green and red cluster of berries and white snowberries and beautiful white blooms. All with a background of the deep green leaves of snowberry and goldthread.
I finally leave this place, reenter the woods and come out at what looks like an old beaver dam. Again, the open water is mixed with wetland marsh plants and felled trees, reflections of each against the still water. This marsh stretches north where I see more open water. It’s a disheveled place with a lot of wood strewn about, wood carelessly left by beavers, I’m sure. So precise and careful with the building of their symmetrical lodge and dam, these mammals leave a mess of felled trees on the nearby land. As I walk farther north, I can see, across the water, through a small opening, a section of the “Upper” pond. I continue northeast, cross a brook that runs from that beaver marsh, pass hair grass alongside the path and about a dozen attractive yellow chanterelle mushrooms just off the path to the right. These are a bright sunshine-yellow with an undulating cap, often unsymmetrically bent upward or downward on one end or another. The yellow gills run down the stem, giving this mushroom some contrasting symmetry.
I balance along a long boardwalk through a wet area with several wetland plants including turtlehead, sensitive fern, rice-cut-grass, long-awned woodgrass and the drooping inflorescences of Carex crinita. After leaving the boardwalk, I see what I believe is a scarlet waxycap mushroom. This mushroom can be a deep scarlet color, but this one is closer to the color of an orange creamsicle.
I continue still deeper into the woods toward drier land. Abundant patches of erect clubmoss cover the ground, growing to about three or four inches tall. These green clubmosses look like small pine tree saplings, but this is as tall as they’ll ever become. Mountain ash grows here, but they’re small trees. Soon, the path moves closer to the water once again. I walk down a little spur path toward the water and step onto the rocks that allow me a view of this open area. It’s breathtaking! The mountain ranges in the distance attract my eye first; the trees seem to run down the distant hills, toward me; they stop abruptly at a wide spread of marsh cut through by a river-width body of water. The water flow is slow, barely noticeable. The entire place is serene, relaxed. It’s a painting by one of the Hudson River artists. Tucked within three-way sedge grass, I see a narrow-leaved arrowhead bloom, the large, bright white petals centered by a yellow center. It’s a nice touch by the artist, tucking away this bright white bloom where it’s barely visible!
Balanced on the rock, I turn to look in the other direction. A natural stone wall edges the water and rises up into the forest, as if a large foundation of rock, acting as a basin, has been worn away by the constant flow of water. Soft ripples of current drift toward the wall and downstream until they disappear around a corner.
I leave my rock and ascend back to the forest path. I see starflower and a small striped maple beside the path, along with hayscented and wood ferns. On a moss-covered rock, I see purplish striped spruce scales and the cores, probably the work of a red squirrel. A bit ahead, I see the shamrock-shaped leaves of wood sorrel growing from mossy path-side edges. The flowers are gone, but these leaves remain in pristine shape, forming wide-spreading patches throughout. I see more painted trillium and notice that the oval red fruit of one plant has a hole in it.
