Explore a geological wonder in Bedford, NH. Pulpit Rock is a short hike that will take you to an ancient river bed carved by a torrential river that resulted from the last ice age. The glacial waters scoured the river bed, leaving smooth rocks and swirling pot holes.

Welcome to Pulpit Rock Conservation Area. This tour will take you along the Kennard Trail, an easy 0.6 mile hike to the geological formation known as Pulpit Rock. The Kennard Trail is identified with white markers or "blazes" on the trees along the trail. Keep a sharp eye out for these white markers and you won't get lost. Along the way, we'll stop and learn a little about the geology, history, and flora that make this such a unique trail.

A forest has many layers of plant life. There are the small plants such as shrubs, moss, ferns, and lichens which grow quietly beneath the shadows of tall trees. The trees found in a temperate forests are dominated by hardwoods (deciduous). Deciduous trees drop their leaves in the fall. Their trunks are also made of a bark that is very hard. Most of the trees are maple, birch, beech, oak, and hickory, along with a mix of other species of trees, including pine trees and other conifers. Take a look at the pictures of leafs and see if you can identify the deciduous trees in this part of the forest. New Hampshire is also famous for its conifer trees. In the days of sailing ships, the state's tall white pines were prized for their use as masts. Prior to the American Revolution, agents of the British Crown would mark the best white pines with a broad arrow symbol, reserving them for the Royal Navy. In fact, Mast Road in Goffstown is named for the route that oxen took pulling the Crown's trees to the Merrimack River. From there, they were transported to Portsmouth where they were transformed into masts for sailing vessels. AR PICTURE Make sure you take your picture with the black bear. Touch the AR button to display the AR picture. Resize and position the bear for a perfect picture and snap it!

Much of the geology we see in New Hampshire is the result of glaciers. During the last million years, this region has experienced approximately 8 glaciations, each lasting about 100,000 years. In between these long cold stretches, the earth warms up for a "brief" 10,000 years. Then things cool down and we start the process all over again. Currently we're in the middle of one of these interglacial periods. During the last Ice Age, a massive sheet of ice called the Laurentide ice cap extended southward from Canada covering virtually all of New England. The ice was a mile thick in this area and moved a couple inches a day. As the glacier moved south through New Hampshire, it plucked rocks off mountains and transported them south in the massive conveyor belt of ice. When the glacier eventually melted, it left the rocks it was carrying behind. Geologists call these boulders "glacial erratics". Geologists identify erratics by studying the rocks surrounding the position of the erratic and the composition of the erratic itself. Careful analysis of the erratic can help geologists determine where the erratic originally came from and provide clues to the direction and timing of the glacier's advance and retreat. Erratics can range in size from pebbles to massive boulders. The largest recorded erratic in New Hampshire is the mammoth stone in Madison NH, south of Conway NH, at 83 feet (25 meters) long and weighing 5000 US tons, but smaller glacial erratics were used by farmers to create New England's famous "stone fences" that mark property boundaries. 

Welcome to the Devil's Pulpit. That's what this prominent rock formation that resembles a pulpit was called for many years before it was changed to Pulpit Rock. Look down and you'll see what is probably the largest geological pothole in New Hampshire. It's even larger than the famous Basin in Franconia Notch. What's a pothole? A pothole is a depression in the bedrock created by erosion. This one measures approximately 42 feet deep by 23 feet wide. It was formed by a cataclysmic flood that gushed through this area at the end of the last Ice Age. Around 14,000 years ago, as the earth began to warm two massive glacial lakes to the west of here were being held in check by the position of the glacier. As the glacier receded north, however, a new drainage path became exposed and suddenly a massive volume of meltwater began flowing through this area. The pothole shape is caused by boulders and other sediments being swirled around and around by the force of the water as it cascaded down into the basin. If you continue your exploration of the area, you'll find additional potholes and waterfalls further downstream. In the late 1800s, Pulpit Rock was a popular tourist attraction. In some years, it attracted as many as two thousand visitors from around the country who paid a fee to explore the geological formations and picnicked at tables and benches near the chasm. Photo courtesy of Justin Benttinen