Tag Archives: opacum

Plimpton Forest (and a bit more)

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Some news to start: next month I’m heading on a three night, four day hike through the White Mountains of New Hampshire, staying overnights at the High Huts of the White Mountains with some friends from work. So I’ve been gearing up and doing practice hikes as often as I can.  I have yet to do a real tough mountain hike (I plan to hit up Wachusett before the hike, but am not sure when I’ll make it happen), but this Labor Day I wanted to hike several days in my hiking boots to break them in and make sure I shook out any issues.

I had Friday off, so I started with a solo hike on a piece of property newly acquired by the town of Sturbridge, the Plimpton Community Forest.  The forest was a big win for open space advocates in the area, as numerous sources of money had to combine to make up enough to buy the land rather than letting it be developed.  It’s located next door to Hamilton Rod & Gun, where I’m a member (the club and its members were instrumental in getting the land protected), and also connects to two other open spaces (Wells State Park and the Wolf Swamp WMA).  It creates (or, perhaps, preserves) a continuous tract of open land, great for outdoor recreation as well as wildlife habitat preservation.

There are no trail maps for the property yet, but I knew that volunteers had marked some trails two weeks prior, so I went in search of those.  There are two trails on the property right now, one marked with red blazes and one with yellow.  The red trail starts up a fairly steep hill, and is obviously along an old road in some spots as it’s fairly wide.

The trail goes through some sections which have been logged but also trails along some beautiful old stone walls.

There are also some muddy parts, which I’m guessing will be quite marshy in wetter weather.

The red trail was clearly marked and easy to follow, and it was obvious when it ended. Signs marked the property boundary, and according to my GPS I was close to a stream crossing which would have put me on private property.  I followed the red trail back and then followed the fork which was the yellow trail.

The yellow trail was much narrower and windier, with some slightly challenging terrain in spots.

The yellow trail goes through some open areas which are beautiful and peaceful (there were no real sounds of neighboring roads, a nice treat for such a close-by trail).  I quite liked the lone boulder seen below.

The trail started to narrow significantly and eventually the markers disappeared. There was no sign that the trail had ended, but there were no more blazes and no path to follow. I believe there is more work to be done here.

Doing both trails added up to about three miles of peaceful hiking.

But … that wasn’t enough.

The next day, Jessica and I took a short hike through the woods at the Rock House Reservation, a favorite of ours for many years.

And the day after that, in fairly steady rain, I took a solo hike through Opacum Woods, a beautiful property I’ve explored plenty of times.  It offers a variety of terrain types, interesting things to look at, and the trails loop instead of being out-and-backs.  The only complaint I have about Opacum is that it’s directly next door to one of the busiest interchanges in the state (I84 + I90) and the highway noise is constant.  As the trails here are fairly simple, I won’t narrate the whole hike, but I did the full loop and the highlights are below.

(Note, my waterproof hiking boots were fine in the rain, but my water-“resistant” jacket failed miserably.)

And as if that was not enough, after three straight days of hiking I went for a fourth day of outdoor activities with a long kayak trip with a friend.  We hit Quaboag Pond from the south and fought the wind and even did a bit of fishing.

Four days off from work, and four days of vigorous outdoor activity.  I can’t complain.  Even if I wasn’t training for a big hike next month, I’d be enjoying this, but knowing it’s getting me ready for this adventure, it’s even more rewarding.

(Solo) Opacum Woods – Sturbridge

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Spring fever is in full swing, and when I found myself with a free afternoon I knew I had to spend some of it in the woods.  I debated my options for a while but ended up returning to Opacum Woods, a site I’d been to a few times before (last time, with Jess, was in the fall).

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This time, in early Spring, the woods were much different.  The trees (other than the evergreens) were largely bare, and the high water from the spring melt totally transformed the landscape.

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At one point, the trail was swamped.  I took this first bridge…

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But shortly thereafter I found myself unable to continue without being in water up my shins.

017 Turning back from the swamped section, I took another trail which stayed on higher ground.  There was the constant sound of water as numerous small streams had swelled and were constantly being fed by short-lived rivulets across and near the trails.

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This boulder always tempts me to climb it.  Not today, though.

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On the other hand, this tiny cave always freaks me out. I feel like the girl from The Ring is going to come crawling out of it.

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Portions of the trail here are on old roads, making for a relatively easy hike along stretches of it.  It’s not all so smooth, though; there are some fairly steep sections as well.  I was tired by the end, which I think had more to do with my “Winter body” than the terrain.

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One thing on plentiful display in Opacum Woods are dead trees being consumed by the wild — woodpeckers, beavers, and wood-boring insects all slowly turn these old dead giants into sawdust.

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After looping around the entire property I took a few more snapshots of the tree-lined paths and headed back up the path I had come down.

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Did I mention it was a bit wet?

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Overall, this was a pleasant afternoon out of the house.  My legs were tired at the end, reminding me that I didn’t do this much over the winter.  I also seem to have bumped up against some kind of poison ivy or similar — as I write this days later I’m still itchy in a few spots.  Such is the price of the outdoors!

Opacum Woods – Sturbridge

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Another Saturday, another Saturday hike!  We had to suffer through some rain for this one, though.

We decided to explore Opacum Woods, a property held in trust by the Opacum Land Trust.  It’s a beautiful wooded area located behind a nice neighborhood in Sturbridge.  It fills the corner made by the connection of Interstates 84 and 90.

At the trailhead we met some folks from Opacum who were closing up shop; earlier in the day they had officially opened up a new bridge built as an Eagle Scout project and were handing out new trail maps.  They gave us one of the new maps; a definite improvement on the one we had picked up when we ran into them at the Big MOE.

We wanted to get around 3 miles in, so we first walked out to Perry’s Point and admired the foliage by the pond.  There is rampant evidence of beaver activity here, including many felled trees and a few which are barely hanging on.

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After returning from Perry’s Point, we followed the three trails on the property in one big loop.  Under a gentle rain we covered all kinds of terrain, from the swampy pond area to steep rocky wooded hills.  At all times, though, the background sounds of the interstates accompanied our hike, and honestly sometimes it was a bit distracting.

We finished with about 3.3 miles covered, a fine accomplishment for a rainy Saturday.

It’s a beautiful hike, with excellent trails which have obviously been lovingly maintained.  It’s just unfortunate that the biggest interstate intersection in Central MA is right next door.