Vibe-Fall-2024 - Flipbook - Page 24
PORTAL TO ANOTHER WORLD
Chain of Ponds Community Forest Project By Lindsay Kafka
Upper Saco Valley Land Trust is leading the effort to perpetually conserve 625 acres of
glacially molded landscape and surface waters in Madison, NH. Community support is vital
for successful completion of this special project—known as Chain of Ponds—which will be
managed as a community forest with public access for low-impact exploration and education.
N
ot far from the local elementary school and just beyond
the small public library, Forest Pines Road in Madison,
New Hampshire, winds through a compact residential
neighborhood and past a dirt road intersected by the rectilinear
scars of a transmission line and a railroad corridor. This unremarkable dirt road is much more than it seems, however. More
than a logging road, it is a portal to a magical glacial landscape
that was formed during the Pleistocene epoch and its repeated
cycles of ice ages. That geological history shaped the land in
distinctive ways that are both fun to explore and deserving of
protection. Now, because of a decades-long effort by committed
individuals and sister conservation organizations, the Upper
Saco Valley Land Trust (USVLT) is on the cusp of conserving
625 acres of this landscape forever for the benefit of current
residents of, and visitors to, the Mt. Washington Valley, not to
mention future generations.
24
Dubbed “Chain of Ponds” for its distinct north-south necklace of ponds and bogs, the property to be conserved consists of
seven contiguous tracts that feature unique glacial landforms,
such as kettle hole bogs and ponds interwoven with eskers.
Conservation of this critical landscape will connect it to existing
conserved lands to create a 1,700-acre uninterrupted block in
the southern foothills of the Mt. Washington Valley.
Stretching almost imperceptibly across two watersheds
in a backwater valley, the property fronts on Davis Pond on
its north end, protecting the headwaters of Pequawket Brook,
which flows through Conway Village into the Swift River. Also
on the north, the property abuts the Madison Boulder Natural
Area, home to North America’s largest “glacial erratic” (i.e., a
rock from elsewhere dislodged by a glacier), which has been
designated a National Natural Landmark by the U.S. Department
of the Interior. The Chain of Ponds’ southern water bodies flow
MWVvibe.com
