Winter in Middlesex Fells
A quick winter hike in Middlesex Fells just outside of Boston, MA. This hike was on Crystal Springs Trail on the Stoneham / Melrose side of Middlesex Fells. [trail map] This short local hike helped us enjoy some time outdoors with our dog.
4/17 Middlesex Fells
I know I know another one about Middlesex Fells but it's one of the best hiking spots that's close to home, I promise... next time will be somewhere new. I also apologize for not posting very often I'm also working on updating my portfolio website which I'll eventually share.
This past Sunday we hit the Rock Circuit Trail in Middlesex Fells again and this time decided to do the entire trail, 3.7 miles or so since we got turned around at some point. I went with Rachel, Alexis, and Behr.
As usual I have lots of photos with Behr and his crazy tongue hanging everywhere because he's just too cute and happy hiking. It was a beautiful warm spring day and it didn't get much better than this.
Right before we got to this break spot, about 40 minutes into our walk, we found this odd tree that had grow up straight a bit and then bent at more than a 90 degree angle down but part of the tree grew up a few feet into it, and to top it all off we called this tree, the butt tree, because the bottom part before it bent was split like butt cheeks. It was a beautiful reminder that not everything goes according to plan and there's nothing wrong with that.
Behr has the most expressive face he has so much personality so I just had to snap this happy tired lazy tongue on the rock face.
So if it wasn't clear already I highly recommend this trail!
4/10 at Middlesex Fells
As I mentioned in the previous post, this past Sunday Amanda and I took Behr and Ruggles to hike Middlesex Fells. We had planned to go out Sunday after Saturdays walk but hadn't chosen a location. Earlier in the day Sunday I had been driving by and noticed the waterfall at the Fells. Given the heavy rain that had happened recently I knew that it was likely at a high flow compared to summer and wanted to check it out before it tapered off.
So we headed out and parked on a side street off Washington St in Melrose, MA. We grabbed the dogs and walked right over to the waterfall called The Cascades and hung out for a bit. I took a bunch of photos and we just sat and enjoyed the sound of the water falling.
We saw a few trails that seem to head up into the park, we decided to take the unmarked trail that looked a bit like stairs heading up towards the top of the falls. Behr was always getting in front of us and had to run back to walk the same ways as us.
When we reached the top we found the stream that fed the waterfall and it was very small, hard to believe it split over the large rock and fell in so many different directions with any amount of force. We crossed a little bridge and continued our exploration. We found the trails rather quickly and decided to take the paths that always went up.
We let the dogs run ahead of us so they would pull us up the hills and rocks and they had some fun. We came to a rock with a beautiful view of the Medford, Melrose, Malden areas outside of Boston and stopped for a short rest to enjoy the view.
We then climbed a few more rock and circled back to the waterfall where we enjoyed a few more quiet moments and headed back home.
This is a quick guess of about where we hiked in the Fells.
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Hiking 3/09: Middlesex Fells
This post is a little late but since I knew I'd be missing this past Sunday's hike (March 13th) and Wednesday March 9th was going to be 70 degrees in New England I just had to go hiking. Since I didn't want to take a full day off work we stayed local. I went with my boyfriend Alexis and our dog Behr. We parked in the same parking lot as last time by Flynn Rink and used the same entrance to the park, but we turned left immediately instead of right.
Since I knew that Rock Circuit Trail gained the most elevation we took that trail. We came across a few fallen trees and bridges along the way. It was hard to get Behr to take the small bridges instead of going through the mud so he ended up a little dirty. We had Behr play around with walking on 3 different fallen trees. The first fallen tree fell right across our path and was just one normal tree. The second we found broke in a very cool way, you could walk in part of the middle of the tree by the stump. The third was a few trees attached to a large piece of displaced earth and we tried to get Behr to walk on a higher branch but he quickly lost his balance and we kept walking. We also found a tree with a hollow base and stuck Behr through the hole for some photos, I might have to revisit that tree for some other photos too!
Eventually we started gaining in elevation, and reached a higher point. At this location we stopped for a minute to give Behr some water. The moss covered rocks, the fallen pine needles, a view of only trees around us, and the breeze made for a very serene stop. Then a runner passed by us on the trail ending the spell and we kept walking. After a while hiking we decided it was getting late, and close to rush hour traffic, so we should try to find the fastest path back to our parking lot.
I pulled out my Maplets app with the Middlesex Fells Reservation Map open and tried to figure out the quickest path back was. We found the orange path which connected to the blue path was the fastest way back. We quickly found the orange path but got turned around figuring out the blue path but eventually found our way back.
Based on using My Map by Google Maps we walked about 2.7 miles in just under 2 hours. The actual walk highlighted here is a little shorter, we took a few detours by accident.
© 2015 Google Inc, used with permission. Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc.
I used Google Maps - My Map (https://www.google.com/maps/d/) to create the above map.
Sunday Hiking: Middlesex Fells
I hope to find the time and go on some kind of hike or walk every Sunday with reasonable weather and shot a few photos, even if they aren't particularly interesting. Just to get outside, get some exercise, and play with my camera. If I stick to it you will see a hiking post every Monday. The photos here are from the first of my Sunday hikes.
For the first Sunday hike I went with my friend Rachel. We didn't have much time as we both had family parties later in the day, so we decided to stay local but go to a park we hadn't tried before. We chose a parking lot that seemed easy to find and meet at, the Flynn Rink parking lot. Of course when we got there that particular lot was very full from all the kids who play hockey, but we got lucky and there was a small lot just up the street we could park at.
We had some trouble deciding which path to try first so we went with the one that looked like you might gain more elevation for a more challenging hike. We started by just following a trail right off the road marked in blue, called Woodland Path. We eventually came to another road through the park, Fellsway E, and decided to find a path that headed back in the direction we came.
I pulled out my Maplets app with the Middlesex Fells Reservation Map open and tried to figure out where the path marked in white, which appeared to head back the way we'd come, was. We found it quite by accident when we decided to climb some rocks for fun but we turned ourselves around and ended up by the road again. Eventually we found the correct direction to walk on Rock Circuit Trail to head back towards our parking lot.
Once we got on the Rock Circuit Trail in that area we saw a few beautiful hazy views of Boston.
Along the way back we found part of an old stone foundation which is all that left of the old observation tower. A friend had mentioned it's existence to me previously as I am always looking for locations to shoot photos but had suggested I might not find it quickly as the park is very large. So I was pleasantly surprised we happened upon it on our first hike in the park. When we found the foundation we also found people had stopped and done some rock balancing and created a sundial here as well. While I wasn't expecting to find the foundation so easily, I really was not expecting to find more than just the foundation when I came to it. This made the area all the more intriguing and exciting to find. We stopped to take a few photos and stopped again a little further along the path when we found a grove of trees covered in pinecones.
Based on my friends fitbit we climbed up 54 flights of stairs (540 feet) and based on using My Map by Google Maps we walked about 2.7 miles in just under 2 hours. The actual walk highlighted here is a little shorter, we took a few detours by accident that added about 0.3 - 0.5 miles to the trip.
© 2015 Google Inc, used with permission. Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc.
I used Google Maps - My Map (https://www.google.com/maps/d/) to create the above map.