Category: ABOUT …. EVERYTHING

Residents of Deering have always valued the rural character of their town. They have consistently supported conserving forested land and active farms over commercial development in order to maintain that rural character of the place. They spent a lot of time outside in nature, whether as hunters or just enjoying their natural environment

In 1980 a group of Deering residents set out to locate the largest native and nonnative trees in town. This list was updated in 1985. You can see and download the Big Tree list here.

In 2016 members of the Deering Association began a project of once again updating the list of big trees by locating and documenting those on the old list and adding new records and species.  Finding a particular trees that was included on a list  thirty-five years ago is a difficult task. At that time it was not possible to add map coordinates to tree locations; there was no smart phones or GPS devices! Locations were given by property owner so even then it is difficult to locate a specific tree in a given parcel. Moreover, many of those properties have passed hands and there is no easily accessible way to find out where a specific parcel is today. Sadly, many of those who reported trees thirty-five years ago have passed away or just do not remember.A small part of our History gone.

In this Big Tree category we present the results of trying to find Deering’s biggest trees.  We certainly encourage Deering residents who might know of the location of a particular large tree, or even a tree that is on the list, to contact us.

You can find all the big trees in New Hampshire at the UNH Cooperative Extension Big Tree site.

Engagement of our Community in this project, just as the Community was engaged all those years ago, will be very helpful as we attempt to account for Deering’s largest trees!

You can download a map of hiking trails in Deering here.

About 1/3 of Deering’s land, 7155 acres, is in conservation easement and thus is protected forever. Most of the hiking trails are Class 6 roads, roads that are seasonally passable but that are not maintained by the town. These are great places for leisurely walking in nature. Often there will be rock walls alongside the roads, or wetlands. Examples are Hedgehog Mt. Rd, Falls Rd and Lead Mine Rd.

There are a few marked trails through forests. These include the Hedgehog Mt. Ridge trail, from Hedgehog Mt. Rd through to High Five, about 5 miles. This is the longest marked trail in town. Other marked trails are much shorter. They are found in the Deering Audubon Sanctuary on Clement Hill Rd, the Pinnacles on Peter Wood Rd at North Rd., Wilkins-Campbell Forest from Wolf Hill Rd to the Deering Reservoir, the Burke Family Wildlife Preserve on Pleasant Pond Rd near Rt. 149, and a very short trail at the Deering Preserve at Falls Rd, off Old County Rd. The walk from Sky Farm Rd to High Five is along a dirt road and is about 1/3 mile in length. Some people go to High Five for star gazing or viewing the full moon.

With the exception of the Hedgehog Ridge trails, the other marked trails are rather short but are level and ,more or less smooth and fairly easy to walk on.

I have added links to XML files that should enable you to download hiking trails to your Garmin device.

Remember that dogs should be kept on leashes, there should be no fires or camping in Deering’s conserved lands.