the Way of the Turtle

3.1 Mile Walk at October Mountain State Forest
+ Miles of Driving Down Dead End Dirt Roads
Wednesday, August 20, 2014

One of the limitations of my TomTom GPS is that it really can't tell the difference between a paved road, a dirt road, a jeep trail, and an eroded track that perhaps was a road a century ago and somehow has stayed on the maps. Normally this isn't a problem, but it does sometimes cause difficulty when I'm visiting state forests in MA, which often have all of the above. I should have known I was in for some driving frustration when it routed me over a different route to my destination and I abruptly found myself stopping and turning around because the paved road turned into an eroded mess. The trip out of the forest was even more confused, as I bypassed several jeep trails it wanted me to take in favor of a fairly driveable dirt road... only to end up at a pair of closed gates and a "road closed" sign, which signalled that I would need to backtrack completely and leave by the same roads I eventually arrived on.

In the end, all of this took enough extra time that I ended up abandoning my plan to ride the Ashuwillticook Rail Trail before heading home. Perhaps I would have been better off sticking closer to home today...

So how about that walk? Four years ago I finally got around to visiting the Washington Mountain Meadow trail and found it a fairly interesting place... in the 1980's the plan was to construct a lake using a dam at the southern end, but the dam leaked and was never completed properly, resulting in a wet meadow instead. Beavers moved in at the northern end and built extensive dams of their own, resulting in the large marsh that's there now. There's a trail that goes around the entire marsh, with some sections running through the woods and others over bridges and boardwalks, and the start of  the trail runs past cellar holes and an old cemetary. Sections also run through spruce plantations that were planted by the CCC in the 1930's. There used to be a boardwalk/trail that ran across the middle of the marsh, but that had been flooded out when I was there in 2010, with only a few boards remaining visible out in the marsh.

The first thing I noticed when I got out of the car was the swarm of bugs that descended on me... I remember that from every past visit, this is a buggy place in the summer. I was a bit concerned by the sign at the trailhead that said that the loop around the northern end was closed due to flooding, but I pressed on anway because (1) I'd driven over an hour to get there, (2) I'd worn old shoes and brought extra socks in case the trail was really wet, and (3) hopefully that was old info that the DCR hadn't had the opportunity to update.

Most of the trail seemed to point to option (3)... I made it 2 miles and barely got my feet damp, though there were several places where the boardwalks were probably under water not too long ago. Unfortunately at around the 2 mile point my luck ran out and the trail disappeared under water. I spotted part of the boardwalk under the water, but ended up having the wade other sections, with water up to my mid-thighs in spots. But I made it through without a dunking, and that turned out to be the worst part of the walk. 

I'm not sure why, but it didn't seem quite as interesting today as it did 4 years ago. Maybe because there wasn't really anything new to see (other than the section I had to wade) and maybe because there isn't much wildlife to see, despite being in the middle of the largest state forest in MA. On the other hand, I did really enjoy the quiet (no traffic noise, no noisy people!) Maybe I should try going back some time in the fall after the leaves have turned and see it in a different season...

JMH