On Sunday May 6th Mark Taylor, Cindi Thorell, and I met on the shore of Turkey Pond in Concord. Our plan was to meet at the route 13 "boat launch" at nine AM. Amazingly we arrived within two minutes of each other. Although it is the only public boat launch that I know of on Turkey Pond the launch site is nowhere near what I would call ideal for powerboats. First off the ramp itself is sand. This is great for kayaks and canoes, but not so good for heavy boats on trailers. That is the good news. The bad news is that the ramp is accessed by a narrow one lane dirt track with rocks near the ramp that are big enough to take out a trailer axle or bottom out any car that doesn't have a high ground clearance. Vehicles with higher ground clearance like my Blazer need to pick their way around a couple of the rocks. Only the trucks with over sized tires can move about freely. Then there is the parking issue. At the ramp there is only room for a half dozen vehicles. After that everyone must park on the side of route 13. For a kayaker all but the parking are non issues. The big rocks are near enough to the ramp that you can get in to unload and still have room enough to turn around. As we were unloading we noticed a sign that wasn't there last year. Turkey Pond is infested with Milfoil. If you here do our other lakes a favor and wash your kayak and racks down before you put in anywhere else. Pay close attention to the skeg box, I noticed some weeds clinging inside mine. Turkey Pond is unusually shallow for the area that it covers. I haven't seen any depth figures, but I doubt that the pond is much over ten feet in depth despite the fact that it is almost two miles in length. Because of this the pond warms up quickly in the spring. Lake Winnipesaukee had been officially declared ice free only five days before, yet Turkey Pond had water temperatures around sixty! During the summer the pond is like bath water. Weed growth is close to the surface throughout most of the pond. I commented to Mark and Cindi that, given the weeds, in the event of a rollover it would be saver to do a wet exit. Any attempt to roll would get you tangled in the weeds. Thankfully two of us have taken a BCU two star class and knew assisted rescues. One of us even got to do one under "combat" conditions last year. But those skills were not to be needed on this trip. Pulling away from the launch ramp we headed towards the route 89 bridges. The day was still cool, with a bit of a headwind to cool us down and give us a bit more exercise. Even though it is two miles from the put in to the dam Turkey Pond always has a small pond feel to it. The pond winds around hills so you never have more than about a third of the pond in view at a time. The first part of the pond has the feel of a swamp or marsh. The shoreline is soft and indistinct, sloping at a shallow angle. Lilly pads extend a hundred yards or more from the shoreline. Ducks and herons are the most common birds seen. Coming around a bend in the shoreline we entered the channel that leads under route 89. This section has the distinct feel of a canal, with good reason. When they built route 89 they created a straight channel several hundred yards long by about fifty yards wide. You would think that this area was boring, but it is not. The nature of the shoreline gradually changes from swamp through woodlands then to manicured lawns. Then you get to the concrete and steel brutality of the route 89 bridges and the change starts in the other direction. Aside from the graceful arch of the bicycle path bridge there are only three good points about the Route 89 Bridge. The first is the swallows that nest under the bridge. The second is the shade that they provide. The third is that they don't intrude on your peace for long. Once past the bridges you enter the third section of Turkey Pond. This section of the pond is a curious mix of impressions. To the right are the grounds of a private prep school complete with bleachers and docks for the school rowing team. The team practices on Turkey Pond. The school did a good job of not intruding much into the landscape. Most of the buildings are hidden from view by trees. Looking to your left you see what to all appearances is a well established beaver pond with brush growing on hummocks in the middle of the pond and low islands scattered about. The brush hummocks have small channels between them just large enough for a kayak to pass through. These channels provide for great practice in your turning and maneuvering strokes, especially if you have a nineteen foot kayak like mine! In the middle of the hummocks is an opening about forty feet in diameter with a beaver lodge to one side. I do not know if the lodge is occupied or not. Out of respect for the possible occupants we didn't nose around to find out. Looking up we saw quite a few red winged blackbirds in the brush. Once you are past the islands the pond opens up to the nature of a large farm pond. The far shore slopes up gently to field covered hills. Rows of trees separate the fields and few houses are in evidence. It is a peaceful, pastoral scene that I enjoy. With all the housing developments I see going up in Southern New Hampshire it is nice to see large sections of landscape unscarred by road or building. Following the shoreline around to the right we entered the fifth, and final, section of the pond. This section has more the feel of a slow river than a pond. This is the pond outlet, where the dam is. Starting at about a hundred yards across, the pond narrows to about a hundred feet before turning a corner and tapering down to about sixty feet at the dam. In this section turtles are commonly seen sunning themselves on floating logs. If approached indirectly they will let you get quite close without showing signs of alarm. Cindi drifted to within ten feet of five of them without realizing it because she was looking in the other direction. Taking a more direct route I was able to get in to about fifteen feet to take a picture. When we left they were still sunning themselves. Starting back I had a rare opportunity. I was paddling in calm conditions with no current or winds pushing me around. With my GPS on deck and set to show me my heading as magnetic I was able to check out the compass that I installed last winter. I followed a steady compass course for about thirty seconds to give the GPS time to settle in then checked the GPS. To my delight the compass and GPS agreed with each other. This gives me much more confidence in my installation. I'm sure you'll agree that it is better to check these things out before you truly need them. We headed back into the open section of the pond. I decided to change my GPS to read my current speed. I would leave it at this setting for the rest of the trip. Feeling a little playful we decided to do a quick sprint. I have not yet found out my top speed in my Viviane so I figured that now is a good time to "raise the bar" on how fast I can push it. I was up to 6.6 MPH, or 5.75 Knots, and still gaining when I decided to back off. The "engine" needs a tune up and I saw no sense in blowing a valve at the beginning of the season. We decided to stop at one of the islands for a stretch and cool down break. We chose the same island that Cindi and I stopped at during the maiden voyage of Cindi's kayak last year. I think of this island as a kind of private picnic spot. The island is only about one hundred feet long and fifty wide. The top of the island is only about ten feet above the water. It is wooded but mostly clear of undergrowth, with a small clear area large enough to pitch a tent or two at the top. At one end is a cute little cove just large enough for one kayak at a time. Getting out at this cove Mark provided the entertainment by almost doing an unplanned wet exit. Although he put the cockpit combing of his Caribou under (after removing the spray skirt!) he managed to right himself quickly. As is typical when something like that happens my camera was strapped to my deck and not ready. After a break we headed back to the takeout. Cindi set the pace for us. Cindi has been working out lately on a kayak exercise machine; she set a steady pace between 4 and 4.5 MPH. This was OK by us as I had promised my family that I would be home around 12:30 and it was getting late. I think all of us were getting hungry and looking forward to lunch. Turkey Pond may not be large or exotic, but it is diverse and interesting. With shallow water warming fast in the spring it makes for a great early season paddle. It keeps us coming back, and we will be back again! -- Paddling along through fog so thick that only one's thoughts are visible, your reverie is abruptly shattered by the ancient cry of a great blue heron as she lifts uncertainly from the brilliant blue of a mussel-shell beach witnessed only by the brooding, wet spruce....your passage home seems as much back through time as it does through space. Mark H Hunt *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Fri May 11 2001 - 16:06:19 PDT
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:30:42 PDT