Starting at the end of September, I'll be taking a month or slightly more to do a trail that's been on my mind for a little over a year. The New England Trail consists of several trails that don't seem to be used as one network as far as I know:

The Cohos Trail
Several White Mountains Trails
a roadwalk from Plymouth to Sunapee
The Monadnock-Sunapee Greenway Trail
The Metacomet-Monadnock Trail
The Metacomet Trail
The Matabesett Trail
The Quinnipiac Trail

In all, this will take me from the Canadian border in New Hampshire down to the coast of Connecticut. By my most recent calculations, this is just shy of 600 miles, with about 70 miles on the road.

I haven't put a lot of thought into the gear yet, but I think I'll be sub-10 pound, even with some warm clothing for the nippy weather in the Whites. Most of my planning time so far has gone into figuring out the logistics, since I'm not sure if this has been done before.

If anybody wants to join for part or all of the trail, I certainly won't stop you. Here's a little blog I'm putting together for the trip, although I don't expect many people to read it, since I'm not web savvy at all:
http://guthook.blogspot.com

Ryan, What a neat idea. I knew about sections of this NET, but didn't realize how close it is to existing.
I'm in Ashburnham, MA, 3 miles from the Wapack trail. I don't know what my schedule will be, but if I'm not busy then I may join you for a bit. If I'm busy but home, I'm close enough to Monadnock to perhaps help out a bit around there.
--Walter

hey there,
did the M/S Greenway a month ago and it is in great shape. We were able to go the 46 miles from Sunapee to the base of Monadnock in 2 days without too much difficulty. Good luck and I would love to hear more as you plan....

Ryan,
Power too you on that route, sounds great with some diverse terrain. 10lbs base sounds totally doable for that time of year.

Bring Jonathan with you, great companion with a cool dog.

Best of luck with this hike.
Jim

Thanks for the well wishes. I'm quite excited about the trip. It'll be especially interesting because of the entire route, I've only been on about 50 miles of it so far (34 miles of the M-M Trail, part of the Crawford Path, and a portion of the Pemigewasset Wilderness).

So far it looks like Gary Hebert (hiked the AT with me in 2007, and posts on BPL) will probably be with me for the Cohos and White Mountains section. I'll see how things go as the planning continues. Should be interesting!

Biggest obstacles so far: Crossing the CT river in Northampton on the M-M Trail, figuring out mail drops in the Whites, the one big roadwalk from Plymouth to Sunapee via Cardigan Mt.

I'll update this and the blog thing with details as they come along. I'm not sure about the exact start date, but my Americorps term ends on September 20, and after that I hit the trail!

The planning is getting to the latter stages for now, which is pretty sweet. Once I get the logistics done with, I can start getting mail drops and gear ready.

I'm still trying to figure out a little bit of my strategy for towns. Just checking but does anybody live in or near Plymouth, NH or Northampton, MA? If you're willing to lend a hand...

In Northampton, I'm looking for a possible ride from the East side of the CT River to the west, since there is no official crossing.

In Plymouth, I'm trying to find a place I can send a maildrop other than a post office, since I might be getting to town near Columbus Day weekend.

I'm checking Views from the Top and couchsurfing.com for extra possibilities, but I figured I'd drop a line here, too.

Cheers!

There are buses: http://www.noho.com/bus/index.html
It looks like the number 39 can take you from Mt. Holyoke college to Northampton, and the number 41 from Northampton to Easthampton.

Maybe these people can drop off and pickup a canoe for you to rent to cross the river. They're located right next to the route 9 bridge in Hadley. I just know them from driving by them on rt. 9.
Sportsman's Marina Inc
1 Russell St
Hadley, MA 01035-9453
(413) 584-7141‎

Maybe you could email the college outing clubs and get someone to ferry you across the river.

If you want to walk across the river there's the rail trail bridge right next to rt. 9.
http://www.mass.gov/dcr/parks/central/nwrt.htm

Ryan:
Looks like an excellent trip. If you need support as you pass through Connecticut or Southern Mass (below Springfield), I'm located in central Connecticut and would be happy to ferry you as necessary.

Would love to join you for part of the trail in Conn if timing works out... email me at james (at) patsalides (dot) com and we can share contact info. Cheers

Regards, James.

Hey James! I'll email you in a few minutes. If you can join for the southern part of this trail, I certainly won't object :)

... hey, Ryan! Would you mind emailing me again? Not sure what happened, but I didn't get your email. Maybe my spam blocker got ya! Email is james (at) patsalides (dot) com. Cheers!

Re-sending... if this doesn't work, try allowing PM's in your profile. It says you haven't specified an address for that yet, but maybe those would get through spam blocker.

Check out ctwoodlands.org for trail info in connecticut - there's a few adjustments to the blue blazed trails due to weather and vandalism. You're correct that you'll need to find some land to camp on... once you finalize your route, let me know and I'll see if I can connect you with some folks near the route.

Pretty psyched to join Ryan for The Cohos and Ze Whites!! (Ryan, Keep up all the hard work planning logistics so I can really just relax and enjoy the views! Much appreciated! [If you've never planned a trek connecting many less traveled trails it's a lot of work to make it all flow easily] Thanks for the invite bud!

Ryan - hadn't thought about it; Kinda assumed you had all the maps figured out already, but I could bring the CT Woodlands book next weekend if you wanted to borrow any of the pages for the trek (to save a little $$ buying maps or just to see if there's anything helpful.) Plus as mentioned above the online site has recent updates. Let me know and I'll grab it.

Now that I have less than two weeks until I start the New England Trail, I've got most all of the planning taken care of: mail drops, places to stay when not on trails, roadwalk routes between trail systems, and transportation from both ends of the hike are pretty much set.

For those of you who are interested in either joining up for a bit, or just want to know about the route, here's a spreadsheet with my gear list and a daily itinerary for the hike (click on "hike plan" at the bottom). Most days in the beginning range around 18-20 miles a day, but there's plenty of room for flexibility.