Ragged Island Hike

The boys and I took the boat over to Ragged Island on Lake Winnipesaukee to search for a geocache there.  We were really glad we went for two reasons.

First, we arrived there and found out it is one of the properties owned and managed by the Lakes Region Conservation Trust (LRCT).  There are very nice, well-maintained boat docks at the south end of the island.  There's a welcome kiosk with information about the history of the island.  The best part though was the laminated nature guide you could borrow from the kiosk as you walked the island.  There is a half-mile loop trail around the island with a dozen posts where you stop and read that section of the nature guide, and it explains to you what trees or plants you can see or what types of animals you are likely to encounter around the island.  It was very well done.

Boat Docks at south end of Ragged Island

Welcome Kiosk

Nature Guide

The trail is well-defined hard-pack dirt covered in pine needles.

YB on the Ragged Island shoreline

This used to be the governor of NH's cottage back in the mid-1800s.

Second, the geocache on Ragged Island was AWESOME.  It tied with a geocache in Hawaii for our favorite geocache.  It required a good amount of teamwork between me and the boys.  I never would  have found it without them.

I picked up the nature guide and just followed the guide figuring we would eventually find the geocache as we followed the nature walk.  As it turns out, the nature walk takes you on a clockwise circuit of the island, and the geocache takes you on a counter-clockwise circuit of the island.  We finished the first clockwise loop of the island doing the nature walk and started the geocache hunt going back in the counter-clockwise direction.  Then my wonderful wife called my cell to say there was a thunderstorm coming on the weather radar, so the boys and I got back in the boat and went home for the day.  My eldest son and I returned a few days later in order to finish the geocache, and it basically required a complete loop of the island in the opposite direction as the nature walk.

But that's OKAY because we had a great time BOTH times walking Ragged Island.

Sorry no pics or GPS track for this hike, but I don't want to spoil the hunt for anyone else going to search for the Ragged Island geocache.  Suffice to say, it was awesome and I highly recommend it.  My eldest really enjoyed it, too.  However, I recommend doing the nature guide walk in reverse order so you can do both the nature walk and the geocache at the same time.