Discussion: Ridge Hill

Whoa, you actually went to Ridge Hill? You are hardcore into history, aren't you? Let me know when you decide to scope out Camp Massapoag or Fawn Lake or Holyoke Community College or World's End or SuAsCo Watershed. (And there are probably a few other hopeless antiques I could think of too.) (Even I have never been to Ridge Hill, though I've seen a copy and may have one lying around here somewhere.)

I found a copy of the Ridge Hill map in a box of old NEOC maps and decided to check it out. It's a postage stamp-sized map with some inconveniently placed property and swamps, so I don't think we could get as much use out of it as Needham. Do you know why Ridge Hill fell out of common use?

I'm not sure that it ever was in common use. I have a dim memory that it isn't even technically a NEOC map, as I think maybe Hans-J retained the copyright himself (take a look at the credits). My impression is that it simply wasn't a very interesting area. Needham is tough enough to use. Or it might have been that Hans-J didn't let the club use his map? Some people apparently thought he was difficult to get along with, but I always found him pleasant enough. (I haven't seen him in years, but he apparently still lives in Canton, age 72.) I don't think there has been an orienteering event held at Ridge Hill during the time since I started in 1983.

Ooh, ooh! I've on the SuAsCo Watershed map! Apparently it was right after I joined AP and thus at the beginning of my orienteering career. And also apparently before I got so verbose. I think I bought the map at the Globe Corner Bookstore.

ooh ooh, me too! haven't been to those others though. We thought about World's End for park-o, but I was always too lazy to actually go out there. I remember thinking the $5 admission fee was a problem also.

The biggest problem with World's End is that it's the most amazing poison ivy plantation I have ever seen. Leaving the wide gravel paths is a bad move. I have no idea what possessed Bill to map it.
I actually orienteered at SuAsCo five times, the last being in October of 1990. It was a regularly-used map back in the day. I'm pretty sure one of those times, in 1984, I got there from Cambridge by bicycle because I didn't have a car. (I did that for Nobscot once, too.)

I think I have (or had) a copy of Holyoke CC around. Never been on it, like Washington, but was part of a collection Curly gave me before they left Tolland.

I went to several meets at Ridge Hill, and one of the best NEOC Christmas diinners was held there in 1981 in a snow storm. Most memorable was the Taylor family sing and Hans Luwald' s film of nudist beaches and camps in Europe.....