GRAFTON NOTCH STATE PARK – Despite having trails in the 3,000-foot elevation range still buried under snow and ice, Grafton Notch State Park has had an abundance of hikers this spring.

While the park, located along Route 26 in western Oxford County, opens officially on Thursday, May 15, the snow and ice are usually gone by the first week to mid week of June, Park Manager Jon Metcalf said.

“There are patches of snow and ice at the level between 3,000 to 3,500 feet,” he said Tuesday afternoon. “It’s a fair amount of snow, (but) we’re starting to get hikers on all the trails. I think it’s just people getting out in the spring, who are wanting to hike before the bugs come out. We’ve also had a few parties off on the new Grafton Loop Trail section, which everybody is asking about.”

Annually, between 80,000 to 85,000 people use the park, of which about 20 percent, or 16,000, are hikers and backpackers.

That number is expected to increase dramatically once people realize how much more family-friendly the park’s most popular trail – Table Rock – has become thanks to four years of footpath hardening work.

“The Table Rock Trail is generating lots of use,” Metcalf said Tuesday afternoon. “I believe it’s one of the most popular hikes in the state and it certainly is the most popular hike in this part of the state. It’s also the most popular trail in the park.”

Table Rock is a spectacular, enormous overhanging cliff face that forms the northeast side of Grafton Notch. It juts out over the glacially-carved valley offering outstanding views of Old Speck, a 4,180-foot high mountain, Slide Mountain and Sunday River Whitecap, 3,376 feet elevation.

Table Rock Trail is a 1.5-mile hike that climbs 900 steep feet in a mile to the prominent rock ledge on Baldpate Mountain. It’s another 0.5 miles to the Appalachian Trail, and from that junction, another 0.9 miles back to the Grafton Notch State Park Appalachian Trail parking lot off Route 26.

Over the past four years, a Maine Conservation Corps crew has labored to build hundreds of feet of rock steps, stairways and drainage devices called water bars. Additional work has included installing iron rungs in rock faces, placing stepping stones through wet areas, building raised-earth treadways called turnpikes, a wooden ladder and slope stabilization.

“All of our erosion problems (on the trail) have disappeared. It’s not eroding everywhere like it was before and it’s drier than it ever was. Now hiking the trail is like walking up stairs.

“To see the work that’s been done, it’s very incredible. It’s beautiful work and we’ve had a lot of positive comments from folks about the trail,” Metcalf said.

Prior to the work, the steep trail consisted of a convoluted mess of tree roots, mud and giant boulders over and around which to scramble.

“Now, it’s a much more friendly trail. It’s fun. It’s still very steep and not a real easy hike, but it’s much more user friendly. As word spreads, we are seeing more use. It’s a nice hike for families,” he added.

But despite the vast improvement, more work remains.

From July 8 through Aug. 12, two MCC crews will be working in the park to finish the Table Rock Trail and hopefully start work on Eyebrow Trail.

Eyebrow Trail is a 1.2-mile path that passes along the edge of a cliff called the Eyebrow, which also overlooks Grafton Notch, albeit from the opposite side of Table Rock.

“We need to touch up a few sites on Table Rock Trail to prevent erosion. Most of the work is down on less steep terrain, so we shouldn’t have to close the trail like we have had to in the past,” Metcalf said.

There is one spot, though, about midway up in the steep section where a wooden ladder was installed, which may require that the trail be closed for a week or more for safety concerns, he added.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com