Circumambulation of Still River Village - March 4, 2020

HIKE REPORT

Wednesday, 4 March 2020, Circumambulation of Still River Village
Hike Leader:  David Fay

5+ miles, 12,000+ steps, ~600' of climbing, 10:00 am start from Oxbow National Wildlife Refuge, Harvard, MA
 
Hikers (16):  David, Cindy Chin, David Wean, Doug Chin, Gerry Sheetoo, Ilkka Suvanto, Jack Mroczkowski, Mike Hanauer, Moshe Werba, Pat Stabler, Richard Fortier, Robyn Maislin, Rochelle Holman, Roy Westerberg, Steve Maislin, and Winslow Green.


Sixteen hardy WWs met at the Oxbow National Wildlife Refuge in Still River, a village in the Town of Harvard.  With little sign of the predicted 70 mph gusts, we started off on a trail, along the east bank of the Nashua River, that was originally an Indian trail but became the road between settlements in Groton and Lancaster around 1650.  At 0.8 miles we turned away from the river onto the old Union Turnpike which was constructed through the Oxbow swamp in 1805, when Thomas Jefferson was president.  We passed plenty of fresh beaver-cut saplings as we made our way east.

After crossing the railroad tracks that run from Worcester to Ayer, we hiked up the hillside through Fruitlands property, still following the Union Turnpike.  After a brief stop to admire the site of Clara Endicott Sears' Pergola mansion, we headed north to the entrance to the Community Harvest Project, located amidst hibernating apple orchards on a couple of hundred acres on the east side of Prospect Hill Road.  After requesting and receiving permission, to cross the property, from the farm manager, we walked east on a farm road and climbed Dean's Hill, where we admired the view of Bare Hill Pond in the distance and took a group photo.

Then it was down Dean's Hill, up Madigan Lane (part of the Union Turnpike in the day), down the Fruitland's property to the west, and finally back to our cars.

About ten of us then met at the Harvard General Store for lunch, which turned into a bit of a fiasco when the kitchen took more than a half hour to prepare the simple lunches we had ordered.  They said their ordering system had broken down, but that seemed a flimsy excuse to some of us.  In the end, they apologized and gave us several coupons for free sandwiches at our next visit.  Next time we'll order ahead.


Report submitted by David Fay.