Many of the 35 participants in the Aug. 1 Randolph Community Forest Day tour posed for a photo in the parking lot near the Pond of Safety, located in Randolph some 5 miles from Route 2 on the Kilkenny Unit in Androscoggin Ranger District of the White Mountain National Forest. (Photo by Edith Tucker.)

Forest Day tour participants walked down the newly built handicapped accessible trail that zigzags to the water’s edge on Aug. 1 to see the new hardened and mud-free canoe access installed by Randolph Mountain Club trail crew members under a USFS contract. The Pond of Safety in Randolph is adjacent to the 10,000-plus-acre Randolph Community Forest, some of which is located in Jefferson. (Photo by Edith Tucker.)

The granite used to make the new canoe access at Pond of Safety came from a house on Route 2 that had fallen into disrepair on land donated to the Randolph Community Forest. The shingled house most recently owned by the late Almon Farrar, once thought to be Randolph’s oldest, was demolished on Monday, July 27. This photo shows Kel-Log Inc. machine operator Wally Corrigan Jr. of Gorham, deftly using the excavator bucket to pick up a granite slabs that was recycled at the canoe access. The stones were washed using a particular protocol at White Mountain Lumber in Berlin to ensure that no invasive species would be introduced to the mountain tarn. (Photo by Edith Tucker.)

This photo of the granite steps at the remote Pond of Safety that drains north to the Upper Ammonoosuc River watershed was shot from one of the temporary hay bales that will be removed once the possibility of erosion and sedimentation has passed. It took time, patience and skill for each slab to be put securely in place. (Photo by Edith Tucker.)

The Pond of Safety, a shallow upland pond ringed by conifers, got its unusual name because it provided refuge during the American Revolutionary War for four patriots who were captured and then paroled by the British after they gave their word they would not again take up arms against the troops of King George III. The Pond is located on 3,200 acres that were purchased in 2001 by the USFS from Hancock Timber Resource Group and Gorham Land Company in a conservation effort facilitated by the Trust for Public Land (TPL). (Photo by Edith Tucker.)

Five proud workers posed for a photo after the new trail and canoe access were nearly completed on Thursday, July 30, two days before the Aug. 1 Forest tour: Auvie Kenison of Randolph, who operated a mini-excavator; three Randolph Mountain Club trail crew members — project leader and third-year member Sarah Allen of Nashville, Tenn., 1st year crew member and former caretaker Justin Taylor, and 3rd year trail crew member Brian Behr of Tamworth — and John Scarinza, chairman of the Randolph Forest Commission. (Photo by Edith Tucker.)