Sunapee Ragged Kearsarge Greenway THE EMERALD NECKLACE OF THE SUNAPEE REGION
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The Sunapee Region of New Hampshire is rightfully known for its namesake lake and mountain, which allow residents and visitors to enjoy hiking, fishing, swimming, beautiful scenery, bird and wildlife sightings, as well as just being. But there is a treasure hiding in the region that deserves wider recognition.
The Sunapee Ragged Kearsarge Greenway (SRKG) is a series of 14 linked trails, 75 miles long, that circumnavigate the Sunapee region, connect the peaks of Sunapee, Kearsarge, and Ragged, and traverse ten towns. The network of trails was conceived in the 1980s by a group of folks from the Ausbon Sargent Land Preservation Trust, Lake Sunapee Protective Association, and the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests. It is now overseen by a nonprofit corporation whose mission is to “create and maintain a forever green, great circle of trail corridors and conserved lands.
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THE GREEN CORRIDOR “From our standpoint, maintaining this green corridor, this 75 miles of hiking trails, is a huge benefit and valuable part of the community with an enormous impact,” says Dave Gardner, a volunteer with SRKG. “I’ve lived in other parts of New England where there really aren’t trails that are publicly accessible. [The SRKG is] an awesome benefit, not only recreationally, not only to the tourist economy, not only to the health benefits to the community but also to the environmental benefits of preserving this green corridor.” The SRKG is one of the more accessible trail systems in New Hampshire, in the sense that it does not take the kind of experience or fitness required by, say, a Presidential Traverse, in which backpackers hike all eight peaks of the Presidential Range in the White Mountains. The land that the SRKG trails cross is a combination of public and private lands that are minimally developed, giving hikers the opportunity to enjoy a sense of wilderness while still being in reach of civilization. The Sunapee area is not as remote
