Devil's Den Cave - Ashland, NH

New Hampshire isn't a hotspot for long and windy caves - in fact, we don't have a single one that would fit that description - but we do have a fair number of small, boulder ones. These are called talus caves and are formed when large rocks become jumbled together through ice ages and other natural movements, creating gaps and crawl spaces in-between. Anything large enough to walk upright into usually gets labeled as a cave, and in the days before modern communication when perhaps each town thought theirs was unique, a good many of these were all given the same name of Devil's Den.

Another chapter in our quest to locate every Devil's Den across New Hampshire was completed this past weekend, as we checked Ashland's edition off our list. There was really no trick in finding it - the town mentions it right in their trail maps - but my wife and I still needed to make the drive north and hike out to the cave's ledge, then do a little climbing. And in this era of social distancing and avoiding crowds, I can think of no better way to obey these restrictions than by hanging out underground.

Devil's Den of Ashland is located in the Homestead Forest off Winona Road, a place we first visited in the fall of 2018. During this trip I was recovering from an accident - and near Darwin Award nomination - which put me under strict orders not to do anything even remotely dangerous. That meant no scrambling up the rock ledge to the cave. My friend John pointed it out from a distance though, so I was at least able to pin the location and add it to my to-do list.

Even though I was on my best behavior we did veer off-trail to poke around an old dumping ground, a scattered mess that included a couple abandoned vehicles. Anyone who's ever gone exploring with me knows that old vehicles are one of my very favorite things to find, and to pose with.

Photo by John Egolf

And when I say some of these vehicles were old, I mean they were wooden-spoked wheels old.

We were also on the lookout for several foundations, leftover from a handful of farms that occupied these woods in the 1800s. The largest was this former barn, and we played our usual trick of having the shortest person stand next to it to accentuate its height.

Always search foundations thoroughly as there are two things you're likely to find. Either a geocache, or a remnant of the foundation's inhabitants. My prize on this day was a rusty old scythe.

Photo by John Egolf

Eighteen months later while in the midst of all the coronavirus craziness - and while popular hiking spots such as Mount Major were being overrun by tourists - my wife and I returned to Ashland to complete our exploration. We pulled into an empty parking lot and had the entirety of Homestead Forest to ourselves.

We were here to see the cave, but choosing to save the best for last we began our hike up Lambert Road, the long way around. Don't let the fact that it's labeled as a road fool you though, this section of Lambert where the forest starts probably has seen nothing but foot traffic in at least my lifetime. This is a trail, and a muddy one at that, messy enough to where parts of it had to be rerouted.

Stay on Lambert and you'll reach the barn foundation, then a left onto Gibban Trail will eventually link you up with Devil's Den Trail. I try never to make things as easy as they should be, though, so after spotting blazes that veered off to the west, I dragged my wife on a bushwhack up and over a series of hills to see where they led. It started off promising with sights such as this tree chewing on three strands of barbed wire, but we soon found ourselves just wandering through the woods after the trail fizzled out.

But we were never in any danger of being lost, because as long as we kept going west I knew we'd intersect with Devil's Den Trail.

The ledge that contains the cave is honeycombed with all sorts of nooks and crannies, many big enough to crawl into, but none big enough to be considered its own cave. Only one fit that description, and that's the one I believe to be Devil's Den. But I could only assume this, because even though the parking lot kiosk and trail both advertise Devil's Den, once arriving at the ledge there is nothing to point out where the official cave is. But having seen a fair share of New Hampshire's talus caves, I am confident in my assumption.

Although we took a different route on this second trip, our final tally was 2.5 miles, almost identical to the 2.4 miles our first time here. Not a long hike, but certainly a unique one. Make sure you bring two things if you come to the Homestead Forest - boots and pants you don't mind getting a little dirty in all the mud, and a camera for all the wonderful things you will find along the way.

Related Links:
Devil's Den - Barrington
Devil's Den - New Durham
Devil's Den - Pawtuckaway

Camp Kiwanis Conservation Land

Camp Kiwanis was a day camp for girls grades one through eight, operating from the 1950s through at least 1993. It may well have run beyond this date, that was just the most recent newspaper article I was able to find that referenced it. The camp was spread over 80 acres of woods along Long Pond in Tyngsborough Massachusetts and had the capacity to accommodate 200 girls. Eventually the camp shut down and fell into ruins, and what remains of it today has been deemed dangerous to the public and slated for removal.

Our first exploration here ended with us seeing less than half of this former camp and walking an even smaller fraction of its trails. We learned that if you visit this place in the summertime there are two things you can expect to find a whole lot of - spiders and pollen. My wife is a girl who runs away from daddy long-legs, and I'm a guy whose hiking kit includes Claritin and a spare inhaler, so between us we decided to save this adventure for another day.

That another day turned out to be nearly two years later, when on a whim my daughter and I came here during a Saturday afternoon drive. Almost immediately I noticed something was different. Where before there were ruins of the camp's structures, those ruins still existed but now each of them was marked by a numbered flag.

We like treasure hunts as much as anyone, so the two of us walked over a mile of trails searching for more of the remnants. The highest numbered flag we found was 32, telling us that somewhere in these woods were 31 other structures or artifacts of the camp. We found at most a dozen of them, so one more trip back out here went onto my to-do list.

Our third time hiking this conservation area we red-lined every trail while at the same time keeping a list of all the flags we found, and although I'm convinced we did not overlook anything, in the end there were a half dozen of them that we still didn't locate.

Our 2-State Hike

Not everything was to be found trailside however, and I believe some things were still hidden in the woods. One such remnant was this structure with fire damage, which after further research we learned was a nurses station that burned to the ground in 1987. Water from Long Pond was used to extinguish the blaze - something that was investigated as arson - and although the cabin was a total loss, fortunately there were no injuries.

Years later Camp Kiwanis was sold to a private developer, but nothing was developed and in 2003 the Town of Tyngsborough purchased the land using $1.2 million in grant money. The property sat untouched until 2018, when an additional grant of $85 thousand was received for restoration of the area. Collapsed structures will be removed, trails will be made ADA compliant, and an official parking area will be created.

With the identification and flagging of all camp remains, that restoration project has now begun. Once complete, Tyngsborough residents will have a beautiful - and safe - conservation area with over 48 acres of woods, 1,000 feet of waterline, and several swimming areas to enjoy. Many wonderful memories have been made here in years past, but that many memories and more will be made here in years to come, by children both young and old.

Links:
https://www.tyngsboroughma.gov/project/long-pond-shores/