Voice of the Wapack – Fall 2025
President’s Note
As I sit here in sunny, windy, arid, mountainous Crete on vacation, it is hard to think about the hills and woods of the Wapack Trail. But the newsletter for the Friends must go out on time, and technology allows me to write and share with ease. Looking back over the past six months, our organization continues to do well. The archives are now at the Monadnock Center for History and Culture, in proper archival containers. A searchable index is being developed, and we have a plan for adding new materials. I would like to thank Michelle Stagl of the Center, Corinne Chronopoulos of the Peterborough Library, and their staff members for all that they did on this project. As George Kocur did such a great job with the scanning of the paper archives, and has expressed interest in continuing to be involved with the Friends, he has agreed to be Historian, and join the board. There have been two more additions to the board. At our September meeting we had two interested guests, who ended up being asked to join. First was Chris Oriel, who responded to my previous newsletter message about assisting with Salesforce. Chris and Anne will be working on improving our Salesforce capabilities and resilience as time permits. The other new board member is Timothy Blais. He and Chris are both trail runners. Tim also has a connection to the trail, as his grandfather organized a group of trail runners in the 1950’s. I’m expecting to learn more about this with George’s assistance in coming newsletters or on our website.
Since my last message, I have not done any presentations about the FoW, but we did have an opportunity for getting our name out. I was contacted by John Charles Meyer, director of the movie Granite Rapids Moon. An email was sent to our distribution list about the showing of this movie at the Park Theater in Jaffrey. This raised some fund for the Friends, and it seems the audience enjoyed the show. I am sorry that I missed it. If anyone has ideas on how to share the story of the Wapack Trail, either with our prepared presentation, interview or written material, please contact me (president@wapack.org).
Finally, we are getting ready for our annual meeting, which is described in other articles in this newsletter. I look forward to seeing some of you there.
- Bruce Myrick, President
Annual Wapack End-to-End hike
This year we give special thanks to Tom Brumaghim on his 20th year of leading our annual Wapack Trail end-to-end hike! This is a strenuous hike with over 3800 feet of vertical gain and covers 21.5 miles. Tom is a member of our board, a Section Captain, and a frequent and key participant on our work days. This year’s hike was on August 23, and four hardy souls joined Tom on the trek. Tom shows no signs of slowing down, so keep the end-to-ender in mind if you would like to join Tom on the trail next year. Thank you Tom!
2025 Friends of the Wapack Trail Maintenance Report
Here are reports on our two scheduled work days that have been held thus far this year, and
details on one more to come!
Saturday, May 3. Wapack Trail re-route, New Ipswich, NH
On our trail workday on May 3rd, we did a re-route of the Wapack Trail in New Ipswich. The new route heads north from the parking area across from the Windblown Camping driveway / Wapack Trail on NH Route 123/124 Turnpike Road. It connects to the existing trail at a point before the trail crosses under the power lines. This new route eliminates the trail following the busy highway and passing through a property owner’s yard.
Special thanks to the 11 folks who participated in our workday on May 3rd! For many it was their first time on a Wapack workday. There was a lot of digging drainage trenches and rock moving, along with blaze painting. Their hard work and enthusiasm made this a very successful day. Thank you!!
Saturday, September 20. Work Day on Marion Davis Trail, Peterborough, NH
On September 20th we had our second workday of 2025. A crew or three showed up Miller State Park plus two Nature Conservancy staff. The project for this workday was on a section of the Marion Davis Trail that is on Nature Conservancy land. We installed a rope railing on a steep ledge section and cleared rocks on a short section to minimize hikers going around and causing erosion. You don’t realize how tough these mountains are until you try drilling into them to install posts. Thanks to all who showed up and made this a successful work day!
Saturday, October 11. Work Day, Temple Mountain
Our final scheduled workday will be on Saturday October 11th. We will be doing general trail maintenance including trimming back brush, clearing water bars, and re-blazing on the section of the Wapack between the summit of Temple Mountain and Holt Peak. Meet at 8:30 at the Temple Mountain Reservation lot on Route 101 opposite Miller State Park. Bring food and water as it is a long hike in. We’ll provide the tools. This is a good time of year to get out and hike the trail and do some basic trail maintenance. We hope to see you there.
Watch for updates on our website. You can sign up for trail maintenance emails at Wapack.org. For further details on trail work days, contact Mike Przybyla: mikep218@comcast.net
Thanks to our Section Captains!
In addition to our scheduled trail work days, we have 22 Section Captains who do the bulk of our annual trail maintenance and monitoring. I’ve been looking over their reports, and they have been out on their adopted section painting blazes, cleaning out trenches and water bars, and clearing fallen trees and limbs. This year we welcome new Section Captain Nichole LeBlanc, who has adopted the Frank Robbins Trail. She and a friend have been doing a great job keeping this trail clear of the quick growing brush and ferns that can quickly choke parts of this new trail. Thanks to all our Section Captains!
- Mike Przybyla, Trail Master & Rick Blanchette, Trails Committee Chair
