The Ware River from the top of the Mass Central Railroad bed.
The excitement lies in the exploration of the world around us.
-Jim Peebles
…Continued from before.
I’m standing on the grass, next to the tarmac, staring at a dense wall of weeds and woody stalks, interwoven into an impenetrable mesh. The only way I can batter my way through that is to somehow smash it down and walk on top of it. I look at Waldo, who is sitting not far from me, staring in the same direction, waiting for me to decide what we’re going to do. I can almost hear him thinking, Come on! Let’s go! We can do it! He clearly has not come to understand what I have, painfully, learned to accept – I’m not a young pup anymore. I turn and head down the wall, off to our left, with Waldo in tow. I think I know, more or less, where the railroad bed is, I just haven’t found a good way to get there. Yet.
We haven’t gone but a few yards and I see where the wall is not as dense as elsewhere. Going through there will require pushing past a lot of foliage, but it’s not as intimidating as elsewhere. I plunge ahead and, as soon as my intention is made manifest, Waldo charges out ahead as if he knows exactly where we should go. After a little redirection, here and there, and a few calls of “Wait! Just wait!” Waldo is heading where I want to go. We soon come to a place that’s a bit cleared out with some trash lying about. It looks like some squatters have been there in the not-too-distant past.
Where we want to go is somewhere to our right, back in the direction we came when I was looking for a passage through the wall. Now that we’re a short distance from the wad of bush that’s the edge of the forest, the going, while not easy, is quite doable. As long as I pick my way carefully. With a bit of nudging, now and again, and calling to Waldo, “This way!”, he gets the idea, more or less, and we’re making forward progress.
It’s not long and I can see the rise, about four feet in front of us, that is the old railroad bed. The rails and ties are all long gone, but what’s left is an easy walk on firm, if buried in dead leaves, ground. There are a very few trees that are growing on our path, some around 16 inches in diameter, meaning they are about 80 years old. They are easily navigated, though, and after three-quarters of a mile, we come to a stone abutment that must have been the footing for a bridge that is no longer there. In front of us is the Ware River, again, and it’s about a hundred feet wide. On the other side of the water are trees and bushes, but nothing I can identify as the continuation of our trail. A little off to our right, around a hundred yards or so, is a highway. With a bridge and a wide sidewalk. We bushwhack our way over there and climb over the guardrail. There’s quite a bit of traffic, but Waldo doesn’t seem bothered at all. Quite a change from how he was as a puppy. But there aren’t any bicycles around, so what’s to worry?
Once on the other side of the river, I keep watching to my left for evidence of an old railroad bed. There’s a steep rise in the ground that is flat on top and running in the right direction, so I’m pretty sure that’s where we want to go. However, it is about 20 feet above us and the climbing won’t be easy. I head over thataway and Waldo takes the lead, bounding up the hill. Damn, what I would give to be half the difference in our ages.
When we get on top, the walking becomes very easy. We follow the railroad bed back toward the river and, in a short distance, we’re standing at the edge of a sharp drop-off that goes down to the river. Just across the water, I can see the stone abutment that we found before. There is no other evidence of the long-gone bridge that once must have stood there. We turn around and head the other way. After maybe a mile, we run into a currently used railroad, running across a bridge over the highway we used to cross the river. Not only are the rails shiny from recent use, there are also some railroad cars parked on a spur. They don’t appear to have been abandoned long ago. According to the map, the Mass Central Rail Trail continues along the tracks. But that is a trek for another time.
I find a way back down to the highway, that won’t risk my falling on my ass, and Waldo and I are soon back to the car. Waldo seems extremely happy about getting back into the bush again, and I don’t feel any worse for the trip, either. The next bit of trail runs about a mile and a half along the railroad, and then veers off to the right, into the bush, on the old railroad bed and some more weed walking. All I have to do is find where it starts.
And, God help me, I do like the challenge.
Once you get on top of the roadbed, the going is easy.