Solo Canoeing, Hamilton Rod and Gun Club – Sturbridge

This past weekend, I took ownership of a genuine “beater” pick-up truck.  This truck is old enough to drive, and it looks it.  But it can do one thing our family SUV can’t — handle a canoe atop it.

019

The white sections are metal trim my father-in-law and I fastened to the body to make it pass inspection.  The truck used to be his, and when he took it off the road I gave it a new home.  I don’t know how long it will last, but a summer of canoe trips will be worth the cost of insuring it.

020

For my first trip alone with the canoe I chose a body of water I’d already paddled around (albeit with my father-in-law), the third pond (“Fish Pond”) at Hamilton Rod and Gun Club, where I’ve been a member for a few years.  I chose this for a few reasons — water is fairly shallow, has almost no current, and is unlikely to have any other boaters on it, being a pond on closed club grounds, which only allows canoes and kayaks.

The pond is fairly quiet, though I could at times hear road traffic and lawn work being done. The club also has several firing ranges on it, so the occasional echo of shooters’ target practice rang through as well.  Still, overall, it’s a quiet and peaceful experience to paddle around this pond.

030 031 034 035 042

Of course, paddling isn’t enough to hold my attention; I had to bring a rod and net with me.  I caught a couple respectable perch and a large pickerel — all returned to the pond to be caught again another day!044

After about an hour and a half on the water, I made for the shoreline and the truck.048I managed to stay dry, catch fish, and successfully transport the canoe to and from the pond without any help.  I’d say it was a successful first paddling expedition.  I’m already planning the next one….

 

(Solo) Opacum Woods – Sturbridge

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).

009

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.

010 015

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

016

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.

023

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

024

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.

030

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.

032

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.

043

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.

041044

Did I mention it was a bit wet?

051

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!

Fishing and Exploring in Sturbridge

No big hikes this weekend, but there was plenty of the outdoors.

Saturday, my in-laws came to visit, and my father-in-law and I got out our dusty fishing equipment and decided to try and hit the Quinebaug River to see if we could land any freshly stocked trout.  We fished two separate sections near Old Sturbridge Village, exploring the shore and trying from a dozen different spots.  We got a few hookups but landed no fish.  It was a beautiful day with highs in the low 70s, and regardless of what the fish were doing we couldn’t have been more content.  The water was clear, we saw fish and birds, enjoyed the warm air, and enjoyed some good company.

022This area is near to where the tornado passed through in 2011; it seems we are surrounded by reminders of it.

026Of course, we did a tick check after our bushwhacking expeditions, and each had to pull off one tick that was on board but hadn’t started feeding yet.  It doesn’t take much….

The next day, Evie decided she was sad she hadn’t been part of the fishing trip and wanted to fish.  I wasn’t quite ready to take her to the river; too much bushwhacking and not enough empty ground.  So we went to the Rod & Gun Club I’m a member of, and fished one of their ponds.

027We caught no fish here either, but saw some perch nervously guarding their egg sacs (which we saw plenty of).  We also saw young salamanders swimming away from us as we walked the shoreline.

031(There’s one in the picture above, right by the dark leaf in the bottom right-hand quadrant).

After fishing for a bit and enjoying a snack by the shore, we did some exploring, trying to get up to the Plimpton Land which borders the club and is in the process of (hopefully!) being secured for future generations to enjoy as open land.

034We walked through some land which had been partially cleared as part of a green forestry initiative to create better wildlife habitat, and explored a bit, but didn’t end up on the right trail, and looped back.  I’ll go back another day and see if I can puzzle out the trail markings.

So — a beautiful weekend in early Spring, a little fishing, a little exploring, a little quality family time.  No real hikes to describe, but these feet got plenty of exercise anyway….

 

 

Quinebaug Woods and Tantiusques – Sturbridge and Holland

After a rainy week, we knew the trails might be a bit muddy and slippery with fallen leaves, so we opted for some easier locations this weekend.  With Evie safely handed off to Saturday gymnastics, we stopped for lunch at Soup to Nuts in Sturbridge.  They’re a cozy lunch spot with a limited menu including a rotation of homemade soups and quiches.  Even though I’d never heard of it, they’ve been in business 31 years. Shows what I know!

Fed and ready to explore, we stayed local and headed down Leadmine Road, intending to visit Tantiusques, a Trustees of Reservations property down the road from the Leadmine trails we had previously hiked.  Following the Trustees’ directions, though, led us nowhere fast; Leadmine Road became a basically impassible dirt road (at least in my hatchback) thanks to deep ruts, wide puddles, and heavy fallen leaf cover.

After debating for a bit, we took side roads over to Holland and found Quinebaug Woods instead, another Trustees property.  Quinebaug Woods is a narrow parcel nestled between private property and the Quinebaug River.  A single trail goes on a brief 1.1 mile loop.

006

It starts along the river (fishing is allowed, and someday I may return with a fly rod) and then takes a short steep climb up.

010

After the climb, it’s a meandering walk along rocky paths back to the trailhead.

017 025

Along the way, we stopped at the old chimney, all that is left of a 1930s cabin on the property.  It’s impressively large for what must have been a tiny cabin (there is not much level ground here!).

028

After completing the loop, we looked at our maps (on our phones, of course) and figured out we could take a back way across to Tantiusques from where we were.  So we made a quick drive back into Sturbridge and approached the site from the opposite direction.  The road was paved, well-maintained, and wide.  I have no idea why the middle section of the road was such a disaster.

Tantiusques was similar terrain as the trail we had just completed, with a similar 1 to 1.5 mile trail loop on it.  The interesting aspect of this property is its mining history, dating back to pre-Colonial times.  The mining stopped in the early 20th century, and there’s ample evidence of the mining all around, including this 1905 mine entrance which is fortunately boarded up (but still plenty creepy looking).

031

Most of the mining on this property was not underground, though. The miners simply cut into the earth, exposing the graphite and other minerals.  Much of the hike was along an old ridge that had been cut open and partially refilled.  There were ample opportunities to look into nooks and crannies of the old mining cuts.

035 10517454_10204441732230739_8375409553202293585_n

We somehow missed a cutoff which would have returned us to the trail head, and followed a side trail which took us out to the road, meaning we had to walk a quarter mile down the road to return to our car.

In both these cases, the properties were obviously not as well-traveled as our other trails.  Trail markings were not as clear,probably because the parcels were small and the trails simple one-mile loops. But we still felt lucky to experience two great hikes in the middle of this beautiful New England autumn.

Opacum Woods – Sturbridge

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.

015

018

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.