Heath Pond Bog Natural Area
🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆 10,000-Year Bog — One of New Hampshire’s finest quaking bogs — a 10,000-year-old floating peat mat with carnivorous plants
Heath Pond Bog Natural Area protects one of New Hampshire’s finest examples of a quaking bog — a floating mat of sphagnum moss that has been growing for 10,000 years since the last Ice Age. The bog’s surface literally bounces when you walk on it, as the floating peat mat undulates over the water below. Heath Pond Bog supports a remarkable array of bog plants including carnivorous sundew and pitcher plants, wild cranberry, Labrador tea, and rare orchids. The site provides a window into an ecosystem that once covered much of New England after the glaciers retreated.
Visitor Information
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Location | Ossipee, Carroll County, NH |
| Entry Fee | Free |
| Age | 10,000 years of peat growth! |
| Plants | Carnivorous sundew, pitcher plants, rare orchids! |
| Experience | QUAKING BOG — the ground bounces! |
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a quaking bog?
A quaking bog has a floating mat of sphagnum moss growing over open water. When you walk on the mat, it bounces and ripples like a waterbed. Trees and shrubs growing on the mat sway as you pass. It’s one of the eeriest and most fascinating ecosystems in North America.
About Heath Pond Bog
Heath Pond Bog Natural Area in Ossipee protects a rare quaking bog — a floating mat of sphagnum moss over deep water that literally shakes when you walk on it. The 80-acre bog is a post-glacial ecosystem that has been accumulating peat since the last Ice Age. Sundews, pitcher plants, and rare orchids grow on the sphagnum mat, while the acidic bog water preserves pollen records spanning 12,000 years.
Things to Do
Observing the quaking bog (feel the ground shake beneath you), viewing carnivorous plants, birdwatching for bog-specialist species, and studying a 12,000-year-old post-glacial ecosystem.
🌿 Visit Heath Pond Bog Natural Area
Walk on a 10,000-year-old floating mat — the ground bounces beneath you!
Wildlife & Nature
Heath Pond Bog Natural Area — in Ossipee — preserves a rare quaking bog (floating sphagnum mat) ecosystem. The bog supports carnivorous plants — sundews, pitcher plants, and bladderworts — plus wild cranberries, Labrador tea, and leatherleaf. Green frogs and bullfrogs chorus from the bog margins. Black spruce — a boreal species — grows on the floating mat. The bog is a remnant of the post-glacial landscape that covered New Hampshire 10,000+ years ago.
Nearby Attractions
Ossipee — nearby — has the Ossipee Lake Natural Area. White Lake State Park — 5 miles north — has a national natural landmark (pitch pine-scrub oak forest). Castle in the Clouds — 15 miles northwest. Conway — 15 miles north — has White Mountains access.
