Wednesday, January 27, 2016, Walden Pond winter hike
Hike Leader: Judith McMichael
10:00 am start from The Food Project parking lot, Lincoln, MA
Hikers (17): Judith, Adena Schutzberg, Ann Northup, Anne Fortier, Chuck McWilliams, David Sachs, Ilkka Suvanto, Margie Lee, Marie Keutmann, Maurice King, Mike Hanauer, Patrick Ward, Romaine Randall, Roy Westerberg, Sander Nydick, Susan Sabin, and Tony Lee.
Present at lunch: Helen Greitzer.
Our group of seventeen set off at 10:06 am, entering the Walden Pond State Reservation from Hemlock Path, just opposite Baker Bridge Road. This access point gave us the advantage of free parking at The Food Project and the novelty of a little-used trailhead. We made our way first to Heywood’s Meadow, at the SE corner of the Reservation. The Meadow was dammed by beavers in 2010 and is now a beautiful pond that contains four beaver lodges, though we are not sure if they are all active. We made our way clockwise around the Pond, including all the uphill options, and stopped to take in the lovely view from the NNE side. The group very courteously listened to me describe the Pond as a kettle hole, formed 12,000 years ago when the North America ice sheet was retreating northward. We continued around the Pond, spending time on the Esker Trail, Emerson’s Cliff Trail (enjoying another wonderful view from Emerson’s Cliff), then returned to our cars via Heywood’s Meadow Path and Hemlock Path, finishing up around 12:20pm.
Including some planned and unplanned steps, we completed around 5.3 miles. The temperature averaged a balmy 42 degrees and sun dominated, with just a few scattered clouds. We had to contend with a bit of ice, but a fine time was had by all. Nine of us continued on to a wonderful lunch at Trail’s End Café in Concord, joining the many cyclists who chose riding the wet, salty, and sandy roads over hiking in the woods. Thank you to all who participated on my first ever WW hike, as hike leader, and to Helen for her ongoing coordination of WW hikes and rides.
If you want to learn more about how the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) responded when the beavers first took up residence in Heywood’s Meadow, and about the formation of the Pond 12,000 years ago, you can read a paper (attached) which I wrote in 2010.
Report by Judith McMichael.
RIDE REPORT
Wednesday, January 27, 2016,
Ride Leader: Ken Hablow
10:00 am start from The Food Project parking lot, Lincoln, MA
Riders (xx): Ken, Barbara Martin, Barry Nelson, Bernie Flynn, Dom Jorge, Francie Sparks, Frank Hubbard, Gene Ho, Jack Donohue, Kaz Zelny, Larry Kernan, Lindy King, Marc Baskin, Rich Taylor, Rick Lawrence, Richard Vignoni, Robyn Maislin, Selig Saltzman, Tom Allen, and Wing Chow.
This was an unexpectedly large group for a rather chilly day. Bernie was cold at the start and took off with Dom and Larry never to be seen again. Since they were a group of three, there was no reason for them to stop. Jack volunteered to lead a small slow group. As the rest of us got spread out, we stopped several times to re-group. After two stops Jack’s group caught up with us, so we all stayed together and made several more stops.
The day was mostly cloudy. Unfortunately the temperature went down several degrees, instead of up as forecast. This meant that some of us (the leader included) got chilled, as we had dressed for the predicted increasing temperatures.
As we came back into Concord, I stopped about a mile from the finish to be sure everyone was still with us. Someone told me that Marc Baskin was on the side of the road with a flat tire, and I rode back a couple of miles to assist him. He had hit a pothole coming down the hill on Sudbury Road. We finally got a new tube in place and inflated - this took two CO2 cartridges and some manual labor with a hand pump. Ironically, just as we finished, a town truck came along and patched the pothole. It was late enough when we finished that we decided there probably would not be many people back at Trail’s End. So we turned around, stopped at Verrill Farm for some soup, then split and rode home. Marc was nice enough to buy me lunch.
Thanks to Barry for sweeping and keeping the group intact. Despite the dropping temperatures, it was a very pleasant day.
Report by Ken Hablow.
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