Wapack Trail

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Wapack Trail
View from Pack Monadnock on Wapack Trail
Length	21 mi (34 km)
Location	Worcester County, Massachusetts and Hillsborough County, New Hampshire
Use	hiking, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, other
Highest Point	Pack Monadnock, 2,288 feet (697 m)
Lowest Point	Spofford Gap 1,226 feet (374 m)
Trail Difficulty	easy, with moderately difficult sections
Season	easiest mid-spring to mid-fall
Hazards	deer ticks, weather, poison ivy

The Wapack Trail is one of the oldest public, interstate hiking trails in the United States. Opened in 1923, it follows the Wapack Range north-south for 21 miles (34 km), between Mount Watatic in Ashburnham, Massachusetts and North Pack Monadnock mountain in Greenfield, New Hampshire. It is designed primarily for day use by hikers, with minimal camping facilities.

The trail passes through the Massachusetts towns of Ashburnham and Ashby, and the New Hampshire towns of New Ipswich, Temple, Sharon, Peterborough, and Greenfield. It also goes over Temple Mountain, and through Miller State Park and the Wapack National Wildlife Refuge, as well as numerous privately owned parcels of land.

The trail is overseen by a non-profit group called Friends of the Wapack. Aside from upgrading and maintaining the trail, the group is trying to have the entire length preserved from development.

The southern part of the Wapack Trail overlaps with the northern part of the Midstate Trail.

Friends of the Wapack patch

[edit] History

The trail was born in a conversation in the summer of 1922 at the Shattuck Inn in Jaffrey, New Hampshire between Allen Chamberlain, who later became president of the Appalachian Mountain Club, and Jaffrey farmer Albert Annett while overlooking the Wapack Range, then known as the Boundary Mountains. The two talked about the possibility of a skyline trail along the ridge of the Boundary Mountains from Mt. Watatic to North Pack Monadnock. Later, Albert brought the idea to fellow farmers Frank Robbins and Marion Buck of Rindge, New Hampshire. The three started cutting the trail near the end of the summer using hand tools. The trail was opened in 1923. Buck named it by joining the Wa from Mt. Watatic and Pack from North Pack Monadnock, and soon the Boundary Mountains became known as the Wapack Range.