I’ve been following the progress of a trail in New Hampshire that will one day practically go border to border, from Massachusetts to Maine. And now 7 miles or so of are done and ready for the big ribbon-cutting in September.
Only we were headed to Maine in August. So why wait?
As we discovered, plenty of other people think the same. We biked this stretch of the New Hampshire Seacoast Greenway during the back half of a Saturday afternoon and encountered numerous cyclists. (UPDATE: The ribbon was cut on Sept. 4, 2024.)
Five of us met at the new Portsmouth Skate Park on the southern end of town (Greenland Road). From the parking lot we followed a short path to the Seacoast Greenway, a nice crushed stone trail where the Boston and Maine Railroad once ran.
We turned left (south) and off we went, through woods and deep cuts in the rock made for the railroad. Occasionally we’d catch the scent of pine sap. Watch out for the triangular patches of raised concrete at road crossings — a different approach than bollards or gates for keeping unwanted vehicles off the path.
One day this trail will be 17.2 miles long, but it now abruptly ends at the North Hampton/Hampton line, by a New Hampshire DOT yard and just shy of U.S. 1.
One of us insisted on exploring it anyway. She didn’t get very far.
Fun coincidence: That end point is just over a mile as the train rolled to the hotel we stayed in during our P2P (Providence to Portland ride) back in 2019.
One day…
For now, know that just before the current endpoint is a small airfield and the Airfield Cafe. The menu looked pretty decent, especially for someone (me) who isn’t keen on traditional breakfast foods. Unfortunately for us, it closes at 2 p.m. There went a chance for ice cream.
Oh, and don’t use it as a parking lot — not enough space. There’s now a new parking lot on U.S. 1 by Post Road.
The trail does go north from the skate park for less than a mile before it dead-ends again. And we didn’t have time to go in search of ice cream there.
Some good news: construction on another section heading south, getting users through Hampton, hopefully will start in 2025.
The trail also just was awarded a $1.4 million grant from the federal government to design the section through Hampton Marsh. Construction on that portion, unfortunately, is penciled in for the early 2030s … just one example of how those of us who want trails need to speak up and push for a faster timeline.
Read more about the next sections of the trail here.
The New Hampshire Seacoast Trail will be the state’s portion of the East Coast Greenway, connecting to the Border to Boston Trail in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and in Maine the Eastern Trail as it pushes south from Portland. The East Coast Greenway uses all of those trails on its 3,000-mile route from Canada to Key West.
Exploring by bicycle 