Take a Hike! Yellick Trails

We hike the Yellick Trails in Northborough, Massachusetts, fairly often. We usually hike the Old Farm Trail along the river, back through the corn field, past the beaver dam and the abandoned, rusted-out cars and farm equipment, and on to the creek, where we spend time tossing rocks and sticks into the water and delighting in the splash. Sometimes we invite friends who collect beautiful and unique stones which my son then grabs and tosses into the middle of the creek. Then we turn around and head home.

Today, we decided to explore some of the trails that we never seem to get to. We parked at the trailhead off of Route 20 and followed Old Farm Trail to Birdsong Trail, intending to hike all the way out to the trailhead off Hudson Street at the end of Coyote Trail.

The path led us among the trees that were felled by Hurricane Sandy week before last. Many pine trees were blown over, their roots sticking up like mountains of dirt, as my three-year-old son observed. At one point we were startled when a large branch fell form a great height about fifty feet away from us. Trunks bisected the path, but someone had taken a chainsaw to them and we didn’t have to climb any of them. Instead, we walked between the two ends of the trunks and got to observe the sap that had dripped from the fresh cuts and count the concentric rings inside.

Fused double-trunk!

On one we saw this:

Further up was one with the notation, “NH3.” Looks like some local Hash House Harriers have used our little trail.

Earlier this week, the kids and I went on a hike on our usual trail in search of club moss. It was chilly and my son complained that it was “winding” (pronounced like “wind” with a short “i” with “ing” at the end) and we didn’t see any club moss, so we cut the hike short. Today on our less-traveled path, we were thrilled to find a few good patches of it.

For those unfamiliar with club moss, it’s actually an ancient plant that predates trees. Prehistoric club mosses grew to heights of 100 feet or more, but today they grow no taller than a few inches. They reproduce via spores and have no root system although they’re often linked together just under the surface of the ground by a root-like stem. If you pull up one plant, you can end up with a whole string of club mosses. It takes club mosses seventeen years to reach maturity and ten years just to become large enough for us to see. People think the diminutive evergreens look like miniature Christmas trees, and some collect them to use on wreaths and other decorations, which is kind of sad when you think that it took almost two decades for the poor plant to reach just a few inches in height. At least it’s sad to me.

Incidentally, we learned about club mosses from Gale Lawrence’s fabulous book of essays, The Beginning Naturalist. There are 52 essays in the book, which follow the weeks of the year. Starting at the autumnal equinox, we’ve been reading one essay a week and then hiking to look for whatever plant, animal, or other feature Lawrence has written about for that week.

At any rate, my daughter and I think the club moss we saw is tree groundpine or Lycopodium dendroideum. She was hoping there would be some of the yellowish spores left to stain her fingers, but I think we must have found this patch of club moss too late for that.

Soon after the club moss sighting, we noticed that the sun was dipping rapidly into the trees, so my husband sent our daughter and me along to explore the trail ahead while he followed our son’s more leisurely pace. My daughter and I travelled over bridges and through mud and along trails lined with dried and rustling grasses until we reached the river and Coyote Trail.

Very quickly, Coyote Trail became very narrow and sloped steeply down towards the river. The going was made all the more treacherous by the slick layer of dead leaves that covered the trail. My daughter and I pressed on until I noticed that the air was cooling as evening drew ever nearer. Not knowing exactly how far we had to travel and not wanting to try and traverse this path in the dark and risk an unplanned dip in the river, we decided to turn back. My daughter hopped, skipped, and ran along the trail, leading the way and calling back to me, “I love to run! Especially when we’re out in nature!”

We paused long enough to note that one clearing would be a good place to set up our tent, should we ever choose to backpack our little trail (which led to a little discussion about why we don’t set our tent up just anywhere), but within a few minutes we’d met up with my husband and our son, who were playing poohsticks from one of the little bridges.

With the little guy on my husband’s shoulders, we retraced our steps back to our car. I flicked a tick (male deer tick, I think) from my sweater before I got in the car, but we found no other arachnid hitchhikers during our thorough tick-check either at the car or back home where we combed our hair and bathed thoroughly. I want to do everything possible to avoid having one of those buggers embed itself in our skin. The sight of that tick lodged in my daughter’s scalp a couple of weeks back, eight little legs wiggling, is not one I want to see again any time soon. Thinking about it now makes me feel all itchy all over again.

Take a Hike! Wachusett Mountain

Every weekend, my husband says, “Let’s hike up Wachusett Mountain!”

And every weekend I say, “But we have this and this and that to do, and it’s going to be a long hike.” Or I say, “Sure!” and then we don’t get ready to go until noon and the kids are complaining. Either way, we don’t do it.

But then a couple of weeks ago we decided to embrace our nomadic lifestyle rather than fighting against it (more on that later). As part of this change in outlook, we’re taking a carpe diem attitude towards destinations and activities in our immediate area. Which means that this weekend we actually did hike to the summit of Wachusett Mountain.

Now, you folks out West aren’t going to think this is much of a mountain. With a summit of 2,006 feet, it doesn’t really compare to the peaks in Utah or Colorado or the Sierra Nevada. But it’s the highest in our area of Massachusetts, and it’s really nothing to sneeze at.

We began at Wachusett Meadow Wildlife Sanctuary, a Mass Audubon sanctuary that we frequent for their great homeschooling programs and the large number of monarchs they host in their meadow. (“We” is me, my husband, our seven-year-old daughter, and our nearly three-year-old son.)

From the parking lot of the sanctuary, we took the North Meadow Trail and enjoyed the milkweed and the monarchs and cabbage whites and other various postman butterflies we can’t seem to identify until we turned off on to Chapman Trail. Chapman was mostly flat and rocky, as are most New England trails we’ve hiked. The last time we hiked Chapman Trail, it was muddy, muddy, muddy, but our extremely dry summer has left it parched. We still saw a few frogs along the trail—a spring peeper and a bumpy orange toad thing and a frog that might have been a spring peeper or a wood frog but which was too tiny (the size of my daughter’s thumbnail) and too fast to see for sure, and a few green frogs in Black Pond near the sanctuary border.

Black Pond

Most of the trail within the sanctuary borders was easily passable, except for a narrow stretch nearly overgrown with ferns (we called it Fern City because we’re a very creative family). It was easy to walk, but it wouldn’t have been very stroller-friendly. Our three-year-old walked part of it and the rest he spent either on his dad’s shoulders or in a mei tai carrier on his dad’s front (because after seven years of parenting, my husband still refuses to learn how to carry a child on his back).

Fern City

About 1.3 miles from the sanctuary, we passed into Wachusett Mountain State Reservation and Chapman Trail became Dickens Trail and then Harrington Trail. From the border, it was 2.5 miles to the summit.

It was at about this point that my seven-year-old really started complaining. She’d worn her trail sandals without socks, and she was starting to get blisters on her heels. We seriously considered turning back, but I bought us some time with a couple of band-aids while making a mental note to bring moleskin next time we went hiking. Or socks. Or both.

The trails in the state reservation were wider than those in the sanctuary until about a mile from the summit when Harrington Trail changed dramatically. All of a sudden, it turned into a Utah hike.

This is where I said, “This is supposed to be the trail?”

It became much more rocky and steep, making it necessary to climb and scramble over boulders. We had been hiking at a pretty leisurely pace and I’d barely broken a sweat despite my rather excessive hiking get-up (long-sleeved shirt, long pants, wide-brimmed hat…all to protect against sun and ticks and poison ivy), but this last little bit of uphill scrambling left me pretty drenched.

When we made it to the top, we were greeted by a welcome breeze and beautiful vista. We walked up to the observation deck from which we could see the Berkshires to the west, Mt Monadnock in New Hampshire to the north, and the Boston skyline way off to the east.

New Hampshire

Boston

The Berkshires (somewhere over there).

We had a snack, enjoyed the view, and I stole my son’s socks and put them on his sister’s feet (he wasn’t doing much walking anyway), and then we headed back.

The trip back was faster and much less whiney. The trip up to the summit had taken three hours. (Yes, it took us three hours to hike 3.8 miles.) The trip back took just under two hours. We know this because our daughter timed our adventure with the purple stop watch she wore around her neck. Her dad said she looked like Flavor Flav.

This was early (just 13 minutes) into our hike.

We ran out of water and we nearly ran out of snacks. My legs were shaking from all of the downhill rock-hopping we’d done, we all had to use the restroom because there were none at the summit and we’re not big on peeing in the wilderness, especially as well traveled a wilderness as the trail to the summit of Wachusett Mountain is.  We got into the car tired and hungry but proud of ourselves for finally making the 7.6-mile round trip.

I’m not sure, however, how long it’s going to be before we can convince our daughter to hike with us again. Looks like it might be a few more years before we’ll tackle an Appalachian Trail thru hike.

Hike Anxiety

Mountain lion and deer tick images are in the public domain (via Wikipedia). I added the “<” myself.

Hiking in California or Utah, we risked meeting up with mountain lions. Hiking in New England, we risk encounters with ticks.

I’m much more anxious about the ticks than I ever was about mountain lions.

This might be because of the sneakiness of ticks. Pretty much if you’ve made it through your hike without seeing a mountain lion, you’re in the clear. You’re unlikely to find a mountain lion hiding between your toes or inside your ear after you’re home.

Ticks, on the other hand are not so straightforward.

Spring, Sprang, Sprung!

The kids and I went on a spontaneous hike this afternoon along the trail near our house that runs along the river. We collected rocks for science experiments, threw sticks into the water, saw some Canada geese, startled a snake sunning itself on a stump (an eastern ribbon snake, we think, although it could well have been a garter snake), and were nearly deafened by the peeping of the spring peepers.

Spring peeper (from August 2011)

It feels, looks, and sounds like spring! (Although I know it’s quite possible that winter will make another appearance before all’s said and done. I’m not packing away my heavy jacket just yet, but I am enjoying the smell of the fresh air through the house and eating lunch with the kids on the enclosed porch.)

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Take a Hike! Broad Meadow Brook Conservation Center and Wildlife Sanctuary

Broad Meadow Brook Wildlife Sanctuary is an urban park in Worcester, Massachusetts, run by Mass Audubon. Many of the trails run adjacent to private backyards and join up with city streets. There’s a modest fee to use the facilities and trails, but I thought it was worth it. We’ve been doing so much hiking, I bought a Mass Audubon family membership, which gets us free admission to any of the sanctuaries.

We’ve already used it three times and we’ve had it just over a week.

The nature center has displays which caught my children’s attention, and there are bathrooms (which I always like) and bird blinds and interpretive placards.

I saw one dad pushing a toddler in a jogging stroller on the trail. He was having some trouble, but he had one of those with the smaller wheels and the swivel wheel in the front. I think that with a stroller with 16″ wheels and a fixed front wheel, it would be easier going. It might be challenging to cross some of the streams where you have to go rock to rock, but I think it would be possible with a jogger stroller (I’ll note here that I’ve never hiked with a jogging stroller. I wear my kids on my back until they’re almost four, then I let them walk). Most of the rest of the trails are wide, pretty smooth, and basically flat.

Rocky Crossing

Another Rocky Crossing

This is another hike we did more than once in one week. On August 5th, we went with our Friday homeschool hiking group. We had a wonderful turnout with, I think, five little boys, four moms, one dad, and then me and my kids.

My daughter was the only little girl on the hike. She was not thrilled with this turn of events.

My daughter likes things quiet and calm. Often when we have boys along, our hikes are not quiet and calm.

“Mommy, all of the shouting is giving me a headache,” she would say.

“Mommy, I like to have one or two boys around, but more than that is too much.”

At one point, she fell over a log and hurt her knee. Later, she dropped her special flat rock between the boards of the boardwalk. The dad with our group reached under the boardwalk and retrieved it for her. I said thank you for my daughter who was now too surly to respond.

Purple Flowers

With the large group, we managed to go one mile in about one hour. It was a lovely trail, though. We passed by the Frog Pond, which, true to its name, was home to dozens of frogs. We observed fallen trees and piles of large rocks. We crossed streams and creeks. We played at the natural “playground” (branches and bricks and hills of dirt and wooden swings).

Frog Pond

The following day we returned with my husband, the kids, and me, and it was much quieter. We didn’t see anyone else on the trails. My daughter seemed to enjoy that quite a bit more than the previous day’s hike. We spent more time in the nature center where my children enjoyed pushing buttons to hear bird calls and looking at the models of baby muskrats and butterflies.

Our family on our own ended up hiking about three miles. We went by the Frog Pond as we had the day before, then we headed into the woods and then along the brook for a ways.

Toad

On our second day there, my kids and I saw three wild turkeys, tons of frogs, three toads, one tiny snake, and a heron.

Spring Peeper

And because I let my children choose their own snacks that morning, they were happy with their food options so we were spared the complaints about those.

It was a great hike, and not far from our home. It’s one we will definitely do again.

Related articles

• Take a Hike! Chestnut Hill Farm (imperfecthappiness.wordpress.com)
• Take a Hike! Waseeka Wildlife Sanctuary (imperfecthappiness.wordpress.com)

Take a Hike! Waseeka Wildlife Sanctuary

We did a little something different with our hike to Waseeka Wildlife Sanctuary in Hopkinton, Massachusetts: we went three times during the week of July 18th.

I sent the e-mail out to the homeschool groups about the hike, and a mom e-mailed back asking how stroller-friendly the trail was. Well, as I’d never been there, I couldn’t really answer that question. So I decided to take the kids out on Wednesday and check out the scene.

For the first hike, it was just me and the kids. We didn’t have a map, and to be on the safe side, we stuck to the wide cart path out to the pond and back.

Cart path from the trailhead.

The second hike was on Friday with another homeschooling family. On this hike, I re-learned what poison ivy looks like after so many years out west (luckily, I learned this the easy way, by having the people we were with point it out to me). We took the Pitch Pine Trail, the shorter loop on the south side of the cart path, out to the pond and took the cart path straight back.

Not poison ivy.

The third hike was on a Sunday. This one was the kids, my husband, and me. We went out to the pond on the Pitch Pine Trail and came back via the Sassafras Trail, the longer loop to the north of the cart path.

Sassafras Trail

For all of the hikes, we followed the directions to Waseeka listed on the site (the site warns against using GPS or online directions to find the sanctuary), which were easy to follow, for the most part. We almost missed the turn into the parking area, though. The sign is clearly lettered but rather small and points directly towards the street rather than angling one direction or another, so you have to be pretty much on top of it to see it. You drive between two trees to enter the parking area. There’s no information kiosk and no trail maps, but the trails are easy enough, you don’t really need a map.

There’s also no bathroom, which isn’t a problem for those who don’t mind using nature’s bathroom, but for people (like my children (and, I admit, myself)) who prefer to use man-made facilities, this can make for a slightly uncomfortable hike. It’s not far from Hopkinton, though, so it’s easy to find businesses where you can grab a snack and use the facilities, if necessary. That’s how we ended up with a large bag of pretzels in the backseat of our car on the ride home.

From the parking area, there’s a main cart path that leads straight out to the pond. This path is wide and mostly smooth. My daughter and I agreed that it would be pretty good for a jogging stroller, although it might get a little more difficult closer to the pond where the trail narrows and becomes more grassy as you walk across the earthen dam.

On either side of the cart path is a loop trail, the Pitch Pine Trail on one side and Sassafras Trail on the other. Pitch Pine is the shorter of the loop trails, but neither is exceptionally long. They’re both well-blazed, which is good because they’re quite narrow and a little overgrown. It was fun for my daughter to watch for the halfway point of the loop when the blazes turned from blue (to indicate we were heading away from the main trail) to yellow (to indicate we were heading back towards it).

The big reward of this hike is the pond.

There is a pair of Ospreys nesting there during the summer. The first time out, we saw one circling overhead and calling (probably angry at us for being there).

Osprey flying.

The second, we just heard them, and the third, we saw the pair perched on the edges of the nest (calling as before).

We saw a beaver lodge.

Beaver lodge

We saw evidence of predation (bird feathers on the trail, always a thrill for my daughter). We heard a bullfrog and saw a heron and took photos of a Viceroy butterfly. We saw ants moving eggs or maybe larvae across the trail (we guessed that perhaps they were moving their nest). Our homeschooling friends saw turkey chicks crossing the road. We saw a slug.

You can tell it's a Viceroy rather than a Monarch because it has the black line on the lower half of its wings.

We loved going three times in a week. Except for the time we met our homeschooling friends, we didn’t see anyone else at the sanctuary. It was quiet and very easy to hear the wildlife all around. And while I found a tick climbing on my husband’s pants leg, we were able to flick the little guy off of there before he could act on his parasitic nature.

This was a great hike for our family, and I would definitely go back. The website suggests it’s a good spot for snowshoeing. Maybe if we get snowshoes, we can try them out there once it gets cold and check out the winter pond scene.

Take a Hike! Chestnut Hill Farm

Back in the day (“the day” being the 18th and 19th century), Massachusetts was largely farmland. Most of the trees had been cut down when the land was “improved” to make it arable. With the expansion into the Midwest, specifically Ohio, where the soil was less rocky and better suited to agriculture (once they cut down all the trees there), New England farms began to be replaced with factories and mills and the farmland was gradually left to become forest again.

Children skipping gaily up the trail.

Chestnut Hill Farm in Southborough looks how I imagine Massachusetts looked in its agrarian past. It’s much more open and exposed than the other hikes we’ve done. The trail runs adjacent to (and partially through) a working farm. We got to see cows and tractors, which was predictably thrilling for the children.

We did this hike with a pretty large group of homeschoolers. Including our family, there were six moms, one dad, one grandma, and twelve children ranging in age from fifteen years down to six weeks. Having such a large group provided us with some great conversation. It also made it even more challenging to decide which path to take when the trail we were looking at did not match what was represented on the map. Trail selection by consensus isn’t fun, but having everyone look at me to decide which direction to go was rather more responsibility than I’d banked on. Out and back it was, as I didn’t want to be responsible for losing this very nice group of people, most of whom I’d just met.

 

We did, however, make it out and back fine. We never did find the side trail we’d intended to take, but we got to see flowers and spider webs and ticks and inchworms. The kids and I kept up our tradition of spotting amphibious life by seeing a tiny little toad. She hopped away before I had a chance to take her portrait.

As with most of our other hikes, there was no restroom, but there was an ample supply of maps at the information kiosk. As mentioned before, the map was of limited utility and the trails themselves were not clearly blazed.

The trail we took was, however, wide and fairly smooth, and I think it would have admitted a jogging stroller with little to no trouble. It went by what appeared to be an open-air storage location for manure, which was a little smelly, but aside from that, it was quite pleasant.

 

It’s probably reasonable to explain at this point that I’m generally not going to give a hike a negative review. I think that a hike is what you make of it. There’s so much personal opinion when it comes to hikes. Some like to follow what to me looks like little more than a deer path through thick woods and underbrush. Others prefer a three-foot-wide paved trail with interpretive placards every 50 yards along the way.

Me? I like it all, although the overgrown, poorly blazed trails trigger my unreasonable anxiety about ticks and poison ivy and make me wish I’d paid attention in Girl Scouts when we learned to use a compass. And that I’d brought a compass with me. Except that if I had a compass, everyone would assume I knew what I was doing. I would rather not give that impression if I can help it. I just like to walk around outside.

Even a bad day hiking I won’t generally attribute to a “bad” trail. With the possible exception of a narrow trail that runs along a steep dropoff with no railing. (Utah, I’m looking at you.)

One more for the road.

Take a Hike! Mt. Pisgah Conservation Area

When I first saw that there was a Mt. Pisgah in Massachusetts, I experienced a moment of confusion. I thought for sure I knew where Mt. Pisgah was, and I was pretty sure it was in North Carolina. Turns out I was right; there is a Mt. Pisgah in North Carolina. There’s also one in Massachusetts and one in Oregon.

At an elevation of 715 feet, the Mt. Pisgah in Massachusetts is more of a hill than a mountain. It’s in the middle of conservation lands that straddle the border between the towns of Berlin and Northborough.

The day we went started out rainy. The forecast said there would be a break in the rain between about 10am and 1pm, which is just when we were planning to go, so decided to proceed as planned.

At the trailhead, we met another family, a mom and her two girls, and we grabbed our wide-brimmed hats and headed into the fog. The plan was to hike the the Mentzer Trail, with the North Overlook as our destination. Out and back, it would be about 1.25 miles.

Living in the West for so many years, I seem to have blocked out the existence of mosquitos. Between two rain storms is apparently, in the estimation of the striped and highly aggressive mosquitos we encountered, about the best time to go hiking We soldiered on, though, trying not to stop too much, which was difficult because we saw so many very cool things to stop and look at.

My son was, as usual, on my back, which made him something of a sitting duck for the blood-sucking insects but which kept him from contributing to the stop-and-start nature of the hike. The girls, however, did just fine on their own in this regard.

An orange mushroom! (My daughter took this picture)

My daughter, always the map-reader, carried the map and followed our route. She pointed out every blaze along the way and insisted that the rest of us also notice and admire each painted yellow spot before moving along. All of the girls found ferns and raspberries and lots and lots of mushrooms.

“Look! An orange mushroom!”

“Look! A blue mushroom!”

“Look! A tiny little mushroom!”

Here’s Toad, but where is Frog?

We saw both a frog and a toad. They behaved differently than the books and musicals I’ve seen about them have indicated. Perhaps in real life, they’re more private about their adventures.

We were just about at our destination when the girls began insisting they were done hiking and my son started asking to get down. We paused for a few moments and looked at the view, trying to imagine what we’d be looking at if it weren’t covered in fog and swatting away mosquitos, then we headed back the way we’d come.

The View

About halfway back, I let my son out of the carrier on my back. He was very excited to walk and seemed to think it imperative that he step on every single rock in our path. He didn’t limit himself to the ones that were in front of him. He swerved back and forth across the path, holding my hand for support and making sure to leave no stone un-stepped-upon. The girls by now were tired of finding mushrooms and decided to run ahead. They would round a curve and the other mom and I wouldn’t be able to see them. We knew they were there only by their laughter bouncing back to us through the fog.

Back at the trailhead, we packed the kids quickly into the cars and shut the doors, trying to keep the mosquitos from following us home. I squashed one on the headliner just before we pulled away.

In spite of the bugs, I quite enjoyed this hike. It was a treat to experience the different sounds and smells and animals in the forest when it’s rainy. The trails were well-marked and it was easy to find a path that was the right length for our little crew. And I look forward to going back and seeing that view when it’s clear out.

But what’s up with these trailheads that have no facilities? We’re not a “peeing in the woods” kind of family (well, 75% of our family isn’t), and even a port-a-john would be welcome after we’ve all emptied our water bottles.

Take a Hike! Gates Pond

When we moved to Utah, I connected with others through the moms club and La Leche League. That worked very well for that time of our lives and for that time of the year (March).

Now that we have two kids and we’re getting deep into this homeschooling stuff, and it’s summer (and the local LLL groups are on hiatus for the season), I’m taking a different approach to settling into Massachusetts.

For me and the kids, I’ve noticed that our best days are almost always outdoors days. To help facilitate more “best days” and to make up for the ridiculous amount of driving we’ve been doing here, I’ve decided that every day we’ll either go hiking or to a playground (or both).

Due to an odd series of events, I’ve found myself leading a homeschool hiking group here for four weeks while the regular facilitator is out of town and/or entertaining guests. Because I didn’t really know the area nor did I know any hikes when I volunteered to lead the group, I decided going out with the kids on some local hikes would be a good idea. Plus, I love hiking with my kids. My daughter is a great hiker and it’s so fun seeing their reactions to the things we see on our hikes.

This week we did two hikes. Tuesday’s was to Gates Pond in Berlin, Massachusetts. We did this one just me and the kids.

The hike around Gates Pond was about perfect for us. It was hot, but not horribly so, and the forest was nice and shady, so we were pretty comfy the whole time.

Gates Pond is actually a reservoir and it supplies water for the nearby town of Hudson, as dozens of signs along the trail reminded us. The trail is a 2.5-mile loop around the pond. It’s partially paved (black top) and is open to all manner of non-motorized travel.

We saw bikes and dogs, walkers and joggers, and we saw horse hoofprints and other—ahem—evidence of horses.

When we headed to the pond, I promised my children they would see frogs and turtles. Luckily, we happened upon this little guy, who helped me not be a liar:

My son rode on my back in the Ergo the whole time, but my daughter walked the entire 2.5 miles. I was very impressed! In addition to the frog, we saw raspberries, wild strawberries, rose bushes, and other evidence of a more agrarian past, like stone fences through the area.

There are no facilities at the trailhead, which isn’t ideal when hiking with little kiddos (I may have birthed the only boy ever who doesn’t like to pee outdoors. I suppose it’s better not to pee near a town’s water supply, anyway).

Aside from the potty issue, Gates Pond was a great destination for our family. It’s close by, very pretty, has excellent tree cover, is mostly flat, is a reasonable hiking distance, and it’s a loop so we can’t get lost. If I can swing it, I’d love to go back there for a jog one day.