Today we headed over to the Zealand area in search of the old Zealand Valley Railroad. We’ve explored a little over here before but never as extensively as we did today. We parked at the Sugarloaf Mountain trailhead parking – which was full of happy hikers.

We followed the Sugarloaf Trail a short distance to where the Trestle Trail spurs off and follows the Zealand River. This Trail is lightly used and we admired the beautiful mosses and bunchberry flowers along the way. The old railroad line doesn’t follow this exact trail here. We surmised it was well above us and not hugging the river. Spring water surges would have likely taken out a railroad if it was this close.

At the next intersection we followed the sign for the Trestle bridge straight across. Our map indicated a three way intersection so we were a little confused but we trusted the sign and we’re pleasantly surprised to find a magnificent giant boulder.

The trail curved around and lead us to another intersection – crossing back over the trail we had just crossed. Another sign lead us to the old Trestle bridge pilings. The Trestle bridge has been out of service for years here. It was a foot bridge that made for a nice loop but was never restored after a flood in 2005. Once upon a time a railroad bridge also crossed in the same location, thus giving it the name the Trestle Trail.

We turned around and retraced our steps to the last intersection and followed the overgrown path that follows Zealand River downstream. This is an old railroad bed – the Zealand Valley Railroad. Today, this path is seldom used by summer hikers and we skirted under and over several blowdowns.

The woods soon transitioned to a hardwood forest and we began to walk gently downhill. The forest opened up in one spot with a floodplain forest feel – indicating the ability for the river to flood over and wash into the woods. Here we began to note larger trees – a huge Cherry, large Yellow Birch, and sizable Spruce. Although they seemed old and large they are new on this landscape – growing after the railroad was no longer in use.

The Zealand Valley Railroad was active from 1885-1897.  It pulled out logs from the forest on about 11 miles of track. You can read more about this history here.  The result of the logging was a denuded landscape that had destroyed wildlife habitat and likely triggered mud slides. Today, though, the forest is owned by the federal government (US Forest Service) and more sustainably managed. The forest has returned, and you can hardly imagine a logged over landscape.

We located where a rail spur branched off into a small staging area. The trail seemed to peter out as we got closer to route 302 (we could hear the vehicles).

We decided to head over to the rivers edge and have a snack. Exploring Zealand River was exciting. We found tadpoles by the hundreds, small fish (dace), hellgrammites (dobsonfly larvae), dragonfly larvae, and a giant water bug!

Andrew explored a bit more in the woods and found the old railroad bed that curved toward the river and eventually crossed it.

We started back to the trail the same way we came and popped back out to the parking area. Before we headed home we decided to check out the Wildlife Pond (we blogged this a few years ago).

The beavers have changed the water flow here and have blocked it up into a higher pond on the left side, leaving the old beaver pond down on the right largely drained. This made for some interesting observations!

Moose tracks and deer tracks could be seen in the mud. Dragonflies buzzed around us as we carefully made our way to the waters edge. Tadpoles again were abundant in this pond – perhaps more than one species too. We saw a few mink frogs. Leeches swam among the tadpoles and we dared each other to touch one (no one did). 

Another great outdoor adventure!