Bear Brook State Park
157 Deerfield Rd
Allenstown, NH
Ten thousand wooded acres of ponds, bogs, and trails just off the Merrimack, holding one of the country's best-preserved clusters of Civilian Conservation Corps craftsmanship.
Bear Brook State Park is the largest developed state park in New Hampshire, some ten thousand acres of forest, ponds, marshes, and bog laced with roughly forty miles of trails. It is a working landscape of quiet: loons on the water, mountain-bike singletrack winding through the pines, and picnic areas along Catamount Pond that fill on warm afternoons and empty again by evening.
What sets Bear Brook apart from other big woods parks is its history. The park was largely shaped in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps, and unlike most such sites, its rustic CCC-era buildings survive in an unusually complete cluster. Today several of them house a group of small, offbeat museums, from a CCC museum to collections on snowmobiling and the state's family campgrounds, giving the park a personality all its own.
What Guests Love
- Miles of quiet, rolling trails for hiking and mountain biking through mixed forest
- Swimming and paddling on Catamount Pond and fishing several smaller ponds
- A rare surviving cluster of rustic CCC buildings, now small themed museums
- The sense of space in the state's largest developed park without the crowds of the notches
Worth Knowing
- The park is genuinely large, so pick up a trail map at the entrance and plan your loop
- The museum buildings keep limited seasonal hours; the trails are open year round
- Mountain bikers know Bear Brook for its extensive singletrack network
- Bring bug protection in early summer near the bogs and ponds
Details
Allenstown, NH
Learn about Bear Brook State Park
A park built by the CCC
During the Great Depression, the federal Civilian Conservation Corps put young men to work on public lands across the country, and Bear Brook received one of these camps. The corpsmen built roads, dams, trails, picnic shelters, and cabins, using local stone and timber in the rustic style that became the signature look of American parks of that era.
Bear Brook is prized because so much of that work survives together in one place. The old camp buildings still stand, and the state has turned several into a small museum complex that interprets the CCC itself, along with quirkier subjects like the history of snowmobiling in New Hampshire. It is a chance to see not just what the corps built but to learn about the young men who built it.
Trails, ponds, and singletrack
The park's forty-odd miles of trails climb gentle hills, skirt beaver ponds, and thread through stands of pine and hardwood. Nothing here is alpine or extreme, which is part of the appeal: it is approachable walking that still feels remote once you are a mile in.
Bear Brook has become a favorite of mountain bikers, who come for one of the region's larger networks of natural singletrack. In winter the same trails carry cross-country skiers and snowshoers, and the park connects into the state's snowmobile trail system.
Water and wildlife
Catamount Pond anchors the developed side of the park with a swimming beach and picnic grounds, while smaller ponds and Bear Brook itself offer fishing for bass and stocked trout in a quiet setting. Paddlers can put in for an easy afternoon among the reeds.
The mix of upland forest, wetland, and bog makes the park good habitat for a wide range of wildlife. Beaver shape the ponds, moose and white-tailed deer move through the woods, and the marshes draw herons, turtles, and a chorus of frogs in spring.
Closest Boutels
The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.
Things to Do Near Allenstown
Concord
About 12 miles, a 20 minute drive
New Hampshire's capital, with the gold-domed State House, the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center, and a lively Main Street.
Manchester
About 15 miles, a 25 minute drive
The state's largest city, home to the Amoskeag Millyard, the Currier Museum of Art, and the SEE Science Center.