New Hampshire trails · Northern Rail Trail
Northern Rail Trail
A 53.8-mile network in New Hampshire, with 724 ft of climbing. Reaches Webster Lake and Chance Pond and other lake destinations. Managed by New Hampshire GRANIT.
Elevation profile
The climbing leans toward the first third: 47% of the ascent falls between mile 0.0 and mile 18.0. It gives back about 502 ft along the way, so it rolls rather than climbing steadily.
3-D terrain
USGS 3DEP ELEVATION × ESRI WORLD IMAGERY · VERTICAL ×1.5
Reaches
- Webster Lake and Chance Pond (lake)
- Eastman Pond (lake)
- Horseshoe Pond (lake)
- Mud Pond (lake)
- Mirror Lake (lake)
- Tewksbury Pond (lake)
- Eagle Pond (lake)
- Winnepesaukee River Reservoir (lake)
- Kilton Pond (lake)
Getting there
Northern Rail Trail junction. 43.44452, -71.76395 · directions
Daylight at the trailhead
On August 31, 2026 — the day this page was generated — first light reaches this trailhead at 5:39 a.m., the sun rises at 6:09 a.m. and sets at 7:24 p.m., and the last usable light fades about 7:54 p.m. (EDT) — 13 h 15 min of daylight. At about 2.7 mph plus 30 minutes per 1,000 feet of climbing, the 53.8-mile route works out to roughly 20 h 17 min of walking — more than a single day of daylight here, so plan it as an overnight or hike it in sections.
Loop options
- Unnamed trail + Northern Rail Trail — 1.4 mi loop, 184 ft gain
Nearby trails
- Sunapee-Ragged-Kearsarge Greenway — 6.7 mi
- Elwell Trail — 13.4 mi
- Monadnock Sunapee Trail — 17.6 mi
- (closed) — 20.6 mi