Lake Sunapee Snowmobile Club

Do You Know How the Corridor Trail System Started?

By Russell Berry, Lake Sunapee Snowmobile Club

This information appeared in an article in the Claremont Daily Eagle, January 4 th 1978.

A few members from each snowmobile club from the Massachusetts border in Northfield, MA to Grantham, NH formed a club which was named the ITS or Intertown Trail System. The members met once a month in Charlestown NH. Each club had a few snowmobiles but there was no connecting trail.

Working with all volunteer labor and only the money in their pockets, the club first linked the towns of Walpole and Alstead. Then they went on to include Acworth, Charlestown, Unity, Claremont and Newport. Moving south, they encompassed Westmoreland, Chesterfield, Hinsdale, and south to the Northfield MA border.

At one of the meetings, it was decided that the trail needed a number or a name and Russ Berry suggested that it be called Route 5. Due to the shortage of funds, the clubs made their trail signs out of number 10 can tops and bottoms. These were painted orange and stamped with a black '5' and the direction north or south. The men used soft aluminum nails to affix the can top signs to the trees. This was a consideration for any loggers who might be cutting windfall on the trail.

Once the trail was established, it was groomed and maintained by the local clubs. The I.T.S. was the first club to have a trail system in southwestern NH, and was officially recognized by the state as a volunteer corporation on February 22, 1980.

When the State of NH realized what this group was doing, they wanted to take over the system, much to the dismay of some of the local landowners.

The club disbanded when the trail was complete. The Corridor Trail system is still in existence, now known as Corridor Trail 5 of the NH Snowmobile Association.

But high in the trees, behind the shiny new black and white state signs, the old orange can tops can still be seen, a tribute to its humble beginnings, and the volunteers who worked so hard to establish the trail.