In some places, the trail is wide and flat.
In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.
-John Muir
Christine and I decided to take Waldo back to a piece of the Mass Central Rail Trail that we’ve visited before. It runs westward from the western shore of the Wachusett Reservoir for some 5 miles. It is an unpaved, crushed stone, track that parallels, for awhile, the Quinapoxet River as it flows down to the reservoir. Along its course are the abandoned foundations of the Springdale Woolen Mill, and a nearby mill-worker’s village. The trail continues west, passes a couple hundred feet under a huge concrete overpass, holding Interstate 190 (that goes north/south from Leominster to Worcester), and then winds its way over some hills to end at Wachusett St. (Rte 31).
There are a couple of reasons we decided to return here. First, it’s a beautiful walk through a white pine and, in the wetter places, hemlock, forest. Nestled in a glen, cut by the river, it is a tree-hugger’s delight, with trees that range from being new-growth, to upwards of 200-years old (which you can tell by the thickness of the trunks). There are a few deciduous trees, but not many. The ratio of conifers to deciduous trees is upside down from what it is along the Assebet River Rail Trail. While Waldo enjoys the smells and new sticks he finds, Christine and I puzzle over the reason for that.
After a forest fire, there is a natural progression of the regrowth of flora as life recovers from the burn. First, there are meadows, eventually filled in by pines and then those are replaced by oaks, maples and so forth. This can’t be the whole story, because in many places, there are two-hundred year old pines growing next to two-hundred year old oaks. Here, there are both old-growth white pines and old-growth oaks, there are just so many more pines. Curious.
The temperature is cool, making it comfortable to wear a light jacket, unzipped. The trail is sequestered beneath hills that rise on both sides, protecting us from the wind. The river, on our left, rushes down a narrow course, over large granite rocks, in whitecapped turbulence. The sky cover is broken, with high wispy clouds that allow sunlight to penetrate to the ground occasionally. Where it is sunny, things are quite warm, and I’m working up a sweat. Especially when we get to the part of the trail that winds up over some hills. We pass other people out doing the same as we are, some with dogs, some on bikes, who also think it’s a good day to roam.
There is some kind of construction going on in the hills. Large earth-moving vehicles are parked on recently created dirt roads that were no more than footpaths the last time we were here. These roads don’t just follow where the footpath was, they branch off and go hither and thither in purposeful directions, I just can’t tell what that purpose is. Are they going to build a housing development up here? God, I hope not.
Soon, we come down a hill and the path abuts Wachusett St. Just across the road, I can see Mill Street. Since we were last here, I’ve found more websites that project where the trail is likely to go (these are not easy to find, because there are places, like Mill Street, where the trail doesn’t officially exist yet). The information I found is necessary because there are places where the footpath does not follow the old railroad bed, so the continuation of the trail isn’t obvious. I know the path doesn’t follow the old railroad bed because there are sometimes twists and turns that no steam locomotive could ever navigate. I kept my eyes open as we meandered our way in the hills today and saw no obvious sign of where the railroad used to go. But where we have been walking, according to the internet, is where the completed “rail trail” will go and it continues on to Mill Street. That’s a project for a later date.
Seeing both ends of this trail was another motivation for returning to this hike. Now that I have some idea of where the trail is going to go, I can look around and see where to park the car when we adventure on. Now all we need is a nice, dry, warm (without being hot) day to do it.
It’s funny the way things evolve over time. This whole walking thing started with getting Waldo. He’s a breed of dog that requires a lot of exercise, which is one of the reasons I got him. Then Christine got the idea of walking across Massachusetts, from the New York border to the tip of Cape Cod. There, we met Phyllis, who also loves to go on long walks. The next project was hiking over the entire Bay Circuit Trail. This all whetted Waldo’s and my appetites for exploration and wanderlust, which led to exploring other trails nearby. Now we’re always on the lookout for somewhere new and interesting to go. It’s become an avocation.
And there are so many wonderful paths to wander down.
In others, it’s narrow and hilly.