Location
Lyndeborough, NH

Size
16 Acres

Year Protected
2006

Alan & Edgar Rice Natural Area

A summer hike for the whole family:
Two Brooks Trail in Lyndeborough

This summer, check out the Two Brooks Trail at PLC’s Rice Natural Area in Lyndeborough. The trail has just received a wonderful spring facelift, thanks to trail elf Gordon Russell.

This very kid-friendly trail is framed by, yes, two brooks – ‘Scataquog Brook and Cold Brook. Aptly named, these two brooks feature shockingly cold water that feeds into the Piscataquog River. Allow 1-2 hours to enjoy this short trail as it winds through a 16-acre property, crossing the first brook, then ascending a steep drumlin before beckoning the hiker to follow a second, burgeoning brook downhill past ever more impressive falls that eventually subside into the low lying floodplains. A visit here can be a symphony of sounds, from a quiet stillness – accented perhaps by birdsong – to the lullaby of the babbling brook to the crescendo of the roaring cascades. This is a very special place – some might even call it magical!

Tip: Read Paul Hague’s overview of the geology of the Rice Natural Area which you will find listed below. A trail guide can be printed by clicking on the following link which has a colorful commentary about 15 well-marked stops along the trail. Trail guides are also available at the trailhead or the PLC office.

Directions to Rice Natural Area & Two Brooks Trail:
From Mont Vernon: From Rte. 13, take the Francestown Tpke. (2nd NH Tpke.) about 4½ miles to Lyndeborough Rd. on left. Drive about a mile to the trailhead sign on right & small turnout on left.
From Francestown: Take 2nd NH Tpke. south about 4½ miles to Lyndeborough Rd. on right. Then, as above.
From New Boston: Take Rte. 13 south for about 1 mile to the Baptist Church. Turn right onto Lyndeborough Rd. In several miles, go straight across the 2nd NH Tpke. & follow Lyndeborough Rd. as noted above.

Geology of the Alan & Edgar Rice Natural Area

“Two Brooks Trail”
Lyndeborough, New Hampshire
Prepared by Paul Hague

Bedrock

Bedrock in this area consists of mid-to-lower Silurian and lower Devonian metasediments, metavolcanics and metaturbidites of the Littleton Formation, varying in age from about 440 to 410 million years before present. Some other units, the Rangely Formation and the Perry Mountain Formation may be present, but our knowledge is uncertain because detailed geologic mapping has not been done in this area. These metasediments are thought to have been deposited in an ancient volcanic island-arc environment similar to what we see in Indonesia and Japan today. If you look carefully, you can still see bedding planes in places. These rocks were originally sands and muds deposited in the sea, but over their long history have since been subjected to the intense heat and pressure of metamorphism and tectonic activity and changed into the extremely hard and tough schists and quartzites we see here today. Cold Creek flows where a fault cut through the rocks, and glacial ice and flowing water of the creek found this weaker joint in the rock, eroding it deeper and wider with time, producing the beautiful falls we enjoy today.

Surface Geology

Around 12,000 years before present, New Hampshire was under the massive continental ice sheet of the most recent ice age, the Wisconsin. Here the ice was over a mile thick, and its action formed the landscape we see today. As the earth warmed and the ice melted and retreated, meltwater runoff formed the sand and gravel deposits we see all around us. The most prominent feature we see here in the Rice Natural Area is a drumlin trending NW-SE. This drumlin was formed under the ice of the glacier as it melted and retreated to the NW. If you look at the top of stagnant and melting glaciers in Alaska or the Alps today, you will see that they are transected by fissures and crevasses which allow meltwater to flow to the bottom of the glacier. The meltwater carries sediment from the top and sides of the glacier to the bottom, and also erodes huge tunnels under the ice. As the ice sheet continues to melt and recede, these tunnels fill with sediment, which are left behind as drumlins and eskers. Drumlins are often oriented in the direction the ice retreated. The top of the drumlin you see here is 60-70 feet above the surrounding terrain. Further along the trail, the land flattens out to a small outwash plain, which floods periodically.