"Trail Closed" on a large orange and black sign attached to a tree is what you would find today at the Greeley Ponds trail head, where it departs from the Livermore Rd, about 1/4 mile up from the Forest Service depot camp parking lot. Parked nearby is a front end loader, an excavator, a roller, and a huge portable 12' wide roadway cookie cutter set-up gizmo; three big earth moving machines plus a porta-form that have been busy for maybe the last three months re-shaping a flood ravaged hiking trail into a gravel road that is now smooth enough for the first two miles for an old buick to drive it, and beyond that for a higher wheel clearance suv, except there's a steel gate back close to the depot camp p-lot that is always shut and locked to exclude motor vehicles as it is a walking-bicycling-xc skiing-snowshoe type of a trail. Probably ok for horses too but not sure on this?
Scheduled to re-open sometime soon at the start of the cross country ski season, the newly rebuilt Greeley Ponds Trail starting in Waterville Valley should make for some pretty good cross country skiing or snowshoeing and it is a U.S. Forest Service multi-use trail that is close to the groomed and tracked x-c trails of the WV trail system which probably means it will just get by with grooming from the action of x-c skis travelling through the snow over the extremely smooth gravel surface below.
No-fee means there is no $20 (adult WV one-day, x-c pass, 2013-14 price) needed, but you do need either a three dollar/day parking voucher for your car, or a 20-dollar/year Forest Service windshield sticker to park your vehicle at the Forest Service depot camp parking lot and there's plenty locals from Campton-Thornton-Plymouth-Waterville Valley-Holderness who know about this little secret freebie cross country spot who chose not to spend the 20-dollar fee for the WV groomed and tracked trails which are immediately nearby.....like just up or down the Livermore Road (trail)....and indicated with informative signs... so hat's off to the WV ski area for grooming the 2.2-miles of the no-fee Livermore Rd, a U.S. Forest Service multi-use foot traffic trail, and about one mile of the nearby no-fee Tripoli Rd, ditto, with twin double tracks and a skating area between the tracks....plus appropriate informative signs as it can get a little confusing to the first time visiter.
First time users to the new Greeley Ponds Trail should be pleasantly surprised with this smooth, new, single lane, small pea-sized gravel road that includes a center road crest for water drainage; the Greeley Ponds Trail starting in Waterville Valley which was wiped out by Tropical Storm Irene in August, 2011. Whoever built this new road through the woods really knew what they were doing!
www.watervillevalleyfoundation.org/blog/ Nov 3, 2013 .... includes seven photos taken before the pea-sized gravel was laid down on top of the muddy road and smoothed out ....