This cache is located not far from NH Route 28, off of Chestnut Cove Road on a 103-acre parcel of the Lakes Region Conservation Trust (LRCT) called the Cotton-Hurd Brook Conservation Area. The cache is a small plastic “Official Geocache” container located at the back of the tract, towards Evans Hill.
In the spring of 2012 Trust volunteers carved out a well marked trail system that crosses two streams through this largely second-growth forest mix of beech, maple, birch, pine and hemlock. You might download the trail map image that is included in the Image Gallery and print it out to take with you. The kiosk in the Parking Lot may have copies as well.
From the small Parking Lot off of Chestnut Cove Road follow the Brook Loop Trail (blue markers) along Cotton Brook until you come to a footbridge. You can either continue left on the Brook Loop Trail (blue) along what will become Hurd Brook, or proceed right on the Evans Hill Loop Trail (yellow.) Regardless of which turn you make, the cache is equidistant from this point.
While your GPS may tempt you to bushwhack, you should stay on the trails at the request of LRCT but also because it will be an easier, more pleasant climb. If you continue on the Brook Loop Trail (blue) you’ll experience a wonderful shaded woodland walk along Hurd Brook which is spectacular during spring runoff and after a good rain.
Eventually the Brook Loop Trail (blue) meets up with the Evans Hill Loop Trail (yellow); proceed right (West) on Evans Hill Loop (yellow). Shortly you will come across a small glacial moraine with lots of fractured rock tumbled together. The map refers to this as the Rock Cave Area but they are not anything one could comfortably explore. The area is covered with thick vegetation in the spring/summer. If you are sure-footed you can scramble among them but be careful as a lot of the rocks are loose and sharp-edged. They might be best observed from a distance, however, because the abundant presence of scat indicates that this rock pile is an apartment complex for porcupines.
Thereafter the Evans Hill Loop Trail skirts the property’s western edge marked by a stone wall, indicating an early 19th boundary of some kind. It is likely that this was once pasturage for sheep. By mid century, however, with shifts in population and the farm economy in this part of New Hampshire, the pasture started to revert to forest.
The property to the west and upland of Cotton and Hurd brooks had, by the late 19th and early 20th century, become a “sugar hill” where native sugar maples were cultivated for tapping in early spring. In the mid 20th century, however, the previous owner put the tract into the “current use” category of land management and it was classified as a tree farm. This section was logged from time to time, probably for the maples. You'll notice that many large white pines were left standing since pine was abundant and of less value than the hardwoods that were taken.
Note the difference in forest density between the land on the other side of the boundary wall and that below it which is relatively open due to the more recent harvesting. One effect of the thinning in this area was that the ground was now more accommodating to plants requiring more light. Some of these appear in the image gallery. As you follow the yellow trail markers down towards Hurd Brook, you might see evidence of the skid roads left by the log skidders (big-wheeled tractors) during lumbering.
The Evans Hill Loop Trail (yellow) will eventually take you back to the foot bridge. Crossing it takes you along Cotton Brook on the Brook Loop Trail (blue) and back to the parking lot.
Plan an hour R/T for this hike no matter which path you take to the cache. There is no potable water on the property; hunters may be in the area in season so dress accordingly. LRCT requests that visitors subscribe to the Leave No Trace principles of outdoor ethics.
So why is this called Juliet’s Find?
Because the property was a bequest to the LRCT in 1999 by long-time Alton resident Juliet E.E. Peverly who, since the 1950s, lived in a farmhouse on the other side of Chestnut Cove Rd., first with her mother and then alone for another 30 years, dying there in 2007 of complications from Parkinsons. (The nearby cache Get Out and Explore! - Trask Side [GC2XRX8] is on another LRCT tract that was acquired largely because of Miss Peverly’s generosity.)
Juliet was one of those wonderfully eccentric characters you can find tucked away in small New England towns. Townspeople knew her as a no-nonsense spinster who was a fierce advocate of land conservation, enlightened development and social responsibility. Among other civic activities, she was at times a founder of the Lake Winnipsaukee Watershed Association (LWWA), chair of the Alton Planning Board and founding president of Alton Housing for the Elderly.
Few knew that she was a Radcliffe graduate, concert pianist and had for a time lived in New York City where she ran the gift shop at the United Nations and frequently provided hospitality to foreign delegates and visiting diplomats by squiring them around Manhattan.
But she quickly tired of city life and in the mid-1950s chose to move to Alton to attend her widowed mother who had inherited a farmhouse and nearly two hundred acres overlooking the eastern shore of Lake Winnepsaukee.
Juliet was well read, a skilled seamstress (according to her niece she made all her own clothes and her mother’s — including undergarments !!!) gourmet cook, talented gardner and an enthusiastic bird watcher. Engaged three times, she broke it off each time when, according to family legend, she realized she was smarter than the men who courted her and would never be happy living with a dolt.
Each year the LWWA gives out the Juliet E.E. Peverly Award to an individual who provides exceptional service to the community for preserving the water quality of the Lakes Region. The award’s citation describes the recipient’s qualities by comparing them to Miss Peverly:
“She was small in stature, had the tenacity of an English bulldog, and was the epitome of a volunteer with a take action — but no guff — attitude. She both talked the talk and walked the walk when it came to civic responsibility and environmental protection....The Lakes Region is a better place and Lake Winnipesaukee is cleaner today for her efforts.”