There will be cheddar bread
The Appalachian Trail and the Hanover Passage
It’s the first week of September, which means two things in the town of Hanover, New Hampshire. The students are moving into their dorms at Dartmouth College, and thru-hikers are hustling to finish the Appalachian Trail before the first snow covers Mount Katahdin. Hanover pretty much serves as the New Hampshire border station for the northbound hikers. Not just because it’s the first place they reach after crossing the Connecticut River via the Ledyard Free Bridge, but because the trail literally winds through downtown Hanover’s bustling commercial streets. The characteristic white trail markings appear on the local utility poles, patches of sidewalk, and more.
Naturally, as someone interested in the possibilities of hiking beyond the traditional backcountry venues, I find this fascinating. We tend to think of the AT as this twiggy behemoth hidden just outside of developed areas. In theory, the Hanover portion of the trail could have skirted the downtown area and stuck to the fields and woods on the edge of town. But instead, the trail follows West Wheelock, South Main, Lebanon, and South Park Streets for about 1.4 miles before disappearing into the woodlands.
If you ask me, there are two likely reasons for this trail-building decision. Private property lines in a densely populated area like Hanover could make it challenging to efficiently route a trail away from the cacophony of downtown Hanover. And by the time you’ve hiked to Hanover via the Appalachian Trail, you’ve reached that state of delirium where everything reminds you of food that you can’t put in your backpack. A speckling of fungi on a log becomes one of many toppings on a charred, bubbling pizza. A starry sky brings to mind vanilla Dippin’ Dots. Giving hikers an opportunity to realize these fantasies in Hanover feels like a cup of mercy amid prolonged sadism.
I was on my way to Burlington, Vermont for work the other week and while I hadn’t earned the ecstasy of ripping into a mammoth pie or sandwich after days of roughing it in the woods, I was too intrigued by this surprising “town to country” portion of the AT to resist a pit stop in Hanover. Naturally, I timed my visit at the exact point in the afternoon when hundreds of families were jousting for parking spaces around the Dartmouth campus, unloading their moving vans. And yet, as my jalopy inched into downtown, I spotted a few outliers among the well-dressed Boomers and Gen Z’ers hauling couches down the sidewalk. On South Main, a grubbier trio with big, bulky backpacks sauntered past the local J. Crew branch. Thru-hikers. I was going to follow their tracks, beyond the heart of Hanover, to the nearest natural landmark of note.
