Boston Lot 3 Hills Ride

Dogs Off-leash

E-Bikes Unknown

Please consider joining UVMBA or donating your time or money to help keep this trail network open access and free for all. uvmba.org/join

This is a great ride featuring a really unique parcel of land nestled against the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Connecticut River, and Lebanon, NH. This trail network features some very technical rock and dirt climbs and descents as well as some more flowy and fast singletrack on the Lebanon side.

Most terrain here is rocky, rooty dirt with some sections of pine forest and clay. Common trail features include: rock gardens, large rock rollovers and rolldowns, narrow and occasionally slippery bridges, knife-edge trails along rock fingers, and fast buffed (or not!) descents. Boston Lot also features a very picturesque lake not featured on this particular ride.

Parking can be found next to the Wilder Dam on Route 10, or near the high school in Lebanon. This ride starts from a third trailhead at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center near the Borwell building. Trails are not labeled in the woods, and it's worth logging the ride on a phone-based app in order to be able to backtrack if you get lost. It can be a confusing network, which is why the local association (UVMBA) has released a mobile site for members that allows live tracking for mid-ride navigation.

From the Borwell Parking Lot, head into the trailhead and take your first right turn onto Westline. Ride up this for about 5-10 minutes until you see a sharp left-hand turn (almost 180 degrees) onto Rob's Rolldown, a quick rolling descent with some rock ledges.

At the next intersection take a right turn onto Spin, a technical and pretty challenging rock spine with rocks and roots everywhere; eventually this trail mellows out a bit but still remains quite challenging (Ledges). Roll all the way down to a steep rock face that will drop you out onto Mainline. Take a right turn here and ride over some sweet bridges until you hit an option to take a left turn onto Pathfinder (if you see an old Pathfinder, you've taken a wrong turn). Skip that left and take the next left onto a sweeping and flat XC trail, following this for a few minutes. Ignore all turns until you hit a slight clearing that has a sharp right that goes uphill.

Ride all the way up, taking either the disused carriage road on the left or the newly cut trail on the right. Keep riding until you hit a small log roll, followed by a short downhill and then a very steep uphill (brownie points if you can clear it - I usually only make it 75% of the way up). Dismount if necessary, walk to the top, and hop back on your bike to take the next left to the top of the quarry. You'll hit a clearing with a bunch of exposed rocks and a large pool of water.

Soak in the sun for a bit and then take a right turn from where you popped into the clearing - this is a fun technical descent with some large rocks and rollovers. Ride this down until you hit a somewhat off camber descent that heads right (Hardwoods) and follow this most of the way down the side of the hill to a doubletrack road. Follow a rolling singletrack cross country trail (Hardwoods and White Dot) until you hit a sharp left-hand turn with a bridge in front of you.

You can opt to go left (as we did on this ride) if you're in search of some more flowy fun trails on the Leb side of B-lot. It's hard to get lost back there; most trails connect and you'll find yourself in the same spot as you started pretty quickly. Otherwise, head straight across the bridge to climb up Craft Pathway.

This is a long and somewhat rooty climb. After you've passed some powerlines, take the next right to ride down Rail It (and if you want to get super rad hit the kickers!!!) until you hit a doubletrack. Take a left turn here and then take the next left to begin a long winding ascent of Craft Hill that takes you around and up the back. This is another great area that is hard to get lost in and is criss-crossed with many trails both named and unnamed.

When you've had your fill, either descend the front (gnarly) or the back via the way you came up (Baldy). If you want a little more time over here be sure to hit up the Craft Loop East (Rake Loop). Cross back over the powerlines and take the first right-hand turn to a flowy and fun descent with some small kickers (if you're feeling bold).

Descend to the bottom and take a right-hand turn onto Indian Ridge. Cross the stream and take another right-hand turn to ascend Burnt Mountain via Andy's Trail. This is a long and fairly challenging climb both technically and aerobically. Ride this all the way to the top of the hill and rejoice!

Finally, ride down the other half of the hill until you hit Westline again - feel free to ride Rob's Rolldown or Spin to cap off the day. Also recommended- a quick right turn at the bottom of Rob's Rolldown/Spin (as you did at the beginning) followed by a left at the location where you previously took right - this is Eastline, a usually buff and fun shallow angle descent that you can really rip!

Go back to the hospital lot, and be sure to stop by the E.R. if you've done any serious damage!

Some history and wildlife details here: council.lebnh.net/bcomm/con…

I have friends that have seen bears back here, but the largest things I have seen are probably porcupines or deer.