Training Log Archive: bl

Dusk DP. Got Snow there - went to Arena. Saw 4 deer on PL - rather saw 4 white "lanterns" bobbing against dark brown background...quite the give-away. Evidently no one else noticed. Tiring boat cover day, nice to have behind. Club meet/meeting tomorrow for contrast.

C • Done 2

DP in the Arena. No hunter collision but also to avoid wet areas. Gray, brown, barren w/ NW wind. No much of a sleep despite intentions. Mild, so open window but wind blew hard at times. Then Beth thought it was time to get up (turned out to be 1:30 but moon illumination deceived), then bright direct moonlight for a spell, more wind & finally gray, grim dawn.

Purgatory Pond loop, CW. NW wind - ran from it at first, toward the sun, leaves scurrying ahead of me, then south, and west and some NW, then east. Was quite chilled by the time i was 2/3 rds way done, T 45F - seemed quite reasonable around the house. Had nylon shell, tee shirt, full length track pants. Took off shell pretty quickly going downwind. Then pants at 28', putting shell back on. Stayed like that the rest of the way, used the pants as a scarf. Maybe 10% of the route was pure sun - a lot of chilly shadow. What a world apart from a March, April or May day. WDS surely at work. Back at the car, there was a sweet Coke waiting. 15-20' slower than other times - very tempting to walk but wouldn't let that happen. Don't think I've done this loop in the fall. Noted a 39F on a March run but it felt entirely different.

November's Black Brook

March blue, another photo from approximately the same vantage

Not much happening at Glenwood barn yard

Had planned to run but too much rain, too tired - not sure which first.

Z&M posing at Rye harbor

got disillusioned as the day progressed w/o so much as a whiff of walk time

Back to Parson's Way. Got so engrossed in the woods that I was disoriented for a while - endless knolls & small ponds. Found a line of red blazes & a conservation easement marker - not aware of what is there, need to check. 2 gun shots.

Rye Harbor back to Rob & Joyce's. Near full moon up, left about 4p. Mostly Sagamore Rd with decent enough shoulders not to get pissed w/ traffic after dark - wide enough to run with back to traffic even - which was better than blinding oncoming cars. Went straight at cemetery so inadvertently added more distance and more distraction in town. Nice running somewhere flat for a change. Many nice old homes, sunset views over marshes, moon thru trees. When I turned onto Partridge, the moon lit up all the water at the end of the street.

At the Arena, still another to-die for day beginning. Admired the one (broken) boulder in the area...feldspar, I'd guess. Lots of mica and other minerals whose names I can't recall. Where, when, how was it made...?

3 hunters arriving for their pleasure as we departed.

Drove to beginning of Currier - thought I started in Hopkinton but it was
still Concord. Had tried to get some distance on gmaps pedometer but
distance measure tool won't work now on this state computer. So loop I
wanted to do was an unknown. 30' of running got me to top of Beech Hill, all the way to JB's house and time to turn around. Loop might have been 90' - not something for lunch hour..... So quiet, few homes on Currier. Hopkinton so rural in places. Few cars, well worth driving up to 10' fromn NNH. Keeps motivation/interest up. That said, still tired.

Currier Road.

Fisk-Little Pond CW. Maybe 60F! Sluggish tho, leaden legs. Wonder if I
might be subject to Winter Dormancy Syndrome*....maybe a cousin of what comes later for some, SAD. CW seems slower. A long climb from low point to highest on Little Pond. First time over an hour in ages. Had I known, I'd have managed a few seconds faster.

* on the flip side, spring is so animated, relatively speaking

DP off Parson's - no hunters. Left path for what appeared to be a clearing but was a ride, then entered a nice piece of forest with knolls, boulders & wet areas, reminiscent of Boxford. Saw a contender for Bow's second largest boulder. Good place to return to. Think I used to run thru same area, different direction more than 6 years ago, before Parsons was built. Still a lot of woods.

PM DP at dusk, moon bright, too bright for a first star on a brief visit. In the hour before going, there were numerous gunshots, foreboding ill for the neighborhood deer. Liking the barren November landscape of the PL (Maine yesterday, too). Couldn't walk the planned route due to the small marsh's being flooded and spilling across the way.

Walker TF stewardship walk with Ken Demain - started at end of Van Ger Drive. A fair amount of gorgeous woods - hardwood with knolls, spurs, big hillsides, clean forest floor etc. There was one long walk stretch on Branch Londonderry Tpke. Not well blazed (ie, barely blazed) on NW boundary - basically lost it & returned to Van Ger Dr. GPS trace quite helpful in figuring out a few puzzles, the "forest-type map" being very basic. A part of Bow practically unknown to me - know quite a few back yards now, too.

QR walk

Beaver Pond without a name


Branch Londonderry


Attached is a jpg of the map with our gps route yesterday. Running
commentary (maybe of interest, esp. after recollections fade): Met Ken at
end of Van Ger. Waited some 15' for a no-show & then off into woods -
except Ken went back to make sure truck was locked:-). "Ken, while you're
at it, check mine." Then down toward the brook looking for yellow blazes
(YB). Wondered if we might have gone by boundary as vegetation changed from new to old growth but K spotted a YB near the brook which we followed SE w/o much difficulty. Lost it a few times, however. At one time, we were standing near 2 small but prominent hills & noted "esker" on the map. These matched what we were seeing with a mapped brook present, too. K recalled Ron taking a new bearing at this point - there was a corner blaze visible tho the boundary cont'd straight toward a large swamp. We turned the corner from a saddle between the 2 mapped eskers from where we could see the mapped pond not 50m away. Then thru a bit more forest and we saw the brook (becomes White Rock Brook) draining the large swamp/beaver pond on the S end of the map. Turned right and gazed upon this large, attractive beaver pond with its very large dam. Then away into what was soon logged forest - low and messy with briars and other rampant growtth...the result of logging a few years back (over a contested boundary). Keeping more or less to compass, we hit the stone wall ahead, heard the stream, crossed it & were standing on Londonderry Branch Turnpike (LBT).

This was a 4500' walk, the road winding slightly and rising and falling and
really very lovely at that point. A truck passed just as we were climbing
onto the road. Along the road, we stopped at the logging depot where junk
had been dumped at K's last visit. There was now some as well but not
enough to feel compelled to have town remove. Boy Scout project in spring? We continued to the end of the road, turning around where there was a house on either side. K had a more detailed map showing a 10ac town purchase. We were looking for some blazes and barbed wire 176' from somewhere! but could not find anything that made sense. So we climbed the snow mobile trail which went up & up. Then some more compass, always looking for blazes which we did not see. Then the first of 4-5 houses in Hampshire Hills - thinking ea one marked the boundary corner we were looking for. Maybe behind the third, we found a YB and figured it went along the stone wall. With some diligent search, we found a few more YB but, indeed, it was poorly marked. The wall ended & it was even harder. Later, we established that blaze slashes had been made some time earlier but not painted. These were often indicated with a piece of streamer. We looked closely at one backyard that had had a shed on an easement but it had been moved. Map shows ROW (right
-of-way) near here. Can see what must be it on the satellite view of
Hampshire Hills. We came to a boundary corner but not blazed. I could see a house on high that had to be on Van Ger so it was time to turn L some 90
deg but since the blazes were nonexistent & we could make out the guard
rail above on the edge of the road, we climbed the steep hill to the road &
returned to cars that way. The middle house on the left was well back,
making one wonder re encroachment. The "forest-type" map was too basic in many respects. It did not have end of Van Ger on it either, nor did it have
any siginficant roads, trails etc that were on the non-WTF side of Branch
Londonderry - making it not pinpoint-friendly enough. The prominent
snowmoblie trail we used was not on the map.

Saw alot of nice forest, eskers/hills, streams, some vernal pools, ponds,
the large swamp/beaver pond, the logged area, the long LBT, the "dump", the 2 houses at the end of LBT as well as the HH development. Too much guessing re blazes. A lot of attractive, steep terrain (USGS shows more than I imagined) at the end - in fact, most of the forest is in considerable relief. 2.5 hours well spent on a picture-perfect November Sunday. Now we
need to return to patch up some questionable areas and blazing needs to be (re)done clearly. Very few infractions and dumped material in only 2
places. LBT, an ungated road, is beckoning dumpers who save considerable money by shortcircuiting normal refuse channels!

C • Pond name 4