Doing summersaults in his grave

As a reader of Thoreau's Walden, I felt that it was my duty to make a pilgrimage to Walden Pond.  Being as it is a 30 minute drive from my house, the question should be asked as to why I have never done it before.  I guess, deep down, I knew what I would find. 

Walden Reservation is a state park and the upkeep is great.  It offers a public beach with on duty life guard and swimming is allowed at your own risk at many other places around the pond.  Parking is $5.  The beach is free.  I think it is the beach that is my problem.  There are so many people there.  Walden is no longer a tranquil place, it is not a place one can go to be alone. 

I don't think that this is what Thoreau wanted the place to be like when he left it.  Of course, he never had any ownership of it to begin with.  I am sure the state makes a pretty penny on parking and from the gift shop.  I imagine Thoreau is currently doing summersaults in his grave.  He will enentually break through to the surface and people being in loud crowds at Walden Pond will be cause of the Zombie Apocalypse. 

That said, there are some nice swimming holes off of the beach.  The girls want to go back for more swimming and less educational stuff, and I will likely cede the point.  I guess we will be going to Walden to swim deliberately. 

My Maine Adventure

Last week I went to Maine on a much needed vacation with my brother.  We went white water rafting and climbed Mt. Katahdin.  We were supposed to skydive, but the weather just wouldn't cooperate.

My brother and I  took the seats up front

This is us surfing.  Basically it is sitting at the bottom of some falls and trying not to drown.

Yes, we are still on the boat!

these totems were all over Millinocket

not whitewater rafting, it is roaring brook a bit  above normal levels.

We did make it to the top and it only took about 5 hrs of an 11hr day on the trail.  

My Brother looking over the ledge at the top.  Would have been really scary  if  it was clear.  

The summit was cloudy so no real view from there, but the top of the saddle trail offered a majestic view.

Landscape version.  These get much bigger.

As the brook was above level so a rock hop crossing became a take your shoes off and ford  crossing.  This felt great on our way down as the water was Ice Cold and refreshing on tired and sore feet.

We had a pretty good trip.  It rained on us about the whole time.  We had fairly clear weather on the day of the hike, but it rained on us our last three miles.  I don't know if it is apparent from the pics but it was raining on us during the rafting trip, hence wet suits in June.  At one point it was raining so hard that I thought about jumping in the river to dry off.  

If you plan on hiking Katahdin, know that it is harder than you expect it to be.  It was really challenging.  Part of that might be that I am not in the best shape of my life.  My brother is in way better shape and it was a little challenging for him as well.  We went up and down the Saddle Trail from Chimney Pond.  We had intended to do the Knife Edge but the Park Ranger had suggested a 1pm cutoff to start it.  We got to the summit but it was already 1:15 and we needed a break and were pretty spent.  A group came off the Knife Edge after being on it for 3 hrs due to conditions and we just were not going to risk it.  I came away from this trip with the knowledge that I need to be in way better shape.

Purgatory Chasm

This weekend we had a great time hiking in Purgatory Chasm.  The chasm has some great rock formations and I did a whole lot of climbing around on rocks.  They have an attached kids park that was a lot of fun because it had a merry-go-round.  Yeah, like when I was a kid.  This one was made with cables so was kind of safe, but oh well.  The kids didn’t know how to use it.  They thought the parents were supposed to push.  We did for a while but that is hard running.  they eventually go the hang of pushing themselves. 

Ally had absolutely no fear in the chasm.  Either that or she completely trusted me to not let her fall.  Probably a mix of both.  Ashli couldn’t hang with me when it came to bounding from rock to rock.  They both had me in the fat man squeeze, as I, a fat man, got squeezed.  The trail was marked well by spray paint on the rocks.  Effective but ugly.  There was a trail map available online and at the location.  So far, my favorite MA park. 

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Hiking This Weekend

We went to a couple of parks this weekend and hiked some really light trails.  The first one we went to was Hammond Pond Reservation.  It was nice and had some cool rock formations.  They allow climbing and repelling off of these formations.  They only get about 20ft high from what I witnessed.  The pond is gorgeous and is full of lily pads.  We didn’t see any frogs but there were a bunch of large tadpoles and one baby turtle or maybe it was just a breed of turtle that doesn’t get very big.  The entrance for this trail is the entrance to the mall, so it never really felt that we were in the middle of nowhere and we could hear traffic and the T the whole time.  The park is split by a busy road and I am not sure if the trails go on over the road as I didn’t want to cross with the kids.   We did have a nice picnic lunch on top of one of the rock formations.  Tuna, watermelon and crackers and sausage. 
The second place we went was Elm Bank Reservation.  This park borders the Charles River on three sides as the river does a dogleg right there.  This is also a soccer park and has a public garden.  We had problems just finding the trail.  We weren’t the only ones as we pointed someone with a trail book to where we had come out as we were leaving.  Nothing was marked here.  It was frustrating as the lack luster website had said that there were trails.  We didn’t even know if we were on the right side of the park.  Not sure if we did the whole trail or not.  It was pretty, but we probably won’t be going back.  It took less than half an hour for us to walk the actual trail.  The garden was okay, but didn’t really impress.  Its best feature was some of the oddly shaped trees.    There was a giant chair and Ally asked if it was made for Shaq.  As Shaq is coming to the Celtics, it is funny that a 6yo girl knows who he is. 

As far of trails up here in MA.  We have noticed vague trail markings when we have found them at all.  Unless you go to second party website, you are not likely to get a map or know how long the trail is.  That is unfortunate and not what I had grown used to.  So far the best trail we have found is near our Church in Wellesley.  It has Wetlands, open fields, woods, and climbs.  The trail markings are vague but not too hard to figure out and Wellesley has a map you can print out.  It is called the Boulder Trail. 

Radnor Lake Natural Area

Took the girls to radnor lake this weekend to enjoy the fall colors and natural cool temperatures.  We did a hike of around 2.5 miles and took some pictures.

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Camping Trip

     Friday, two of my co-workers and I went on a camping trip to Fall Creek Falls.  It was a pretty fun trip.  Friday night it rained on us pretty hard, but my tent was sealed and I stayed dry.  We awoke at 5:45 Saturday morning to the sound of  the 2 year old in the next campsite over crying.  This is a sound that would plague us for the remainder of the trip.  Night, day, or whenever, this kid would cry and his parents would do nothing about it.  On Saturday night the father of the kid brought him over to say goodnight to us.  I guess this was a "subtle" hint to be quiet.  5:45 Sunday morning and  again I am awoken to the quiet piercing sound of this kid screaming his head off.  I did get some satisfaction when his mom packed him into the car to go home he was crying, and she was going to have to listen to it. 
   Enough about the bad lets get on to the good.  When not plagued by the devils own voice we could hear the creek that was right off the cliff behind our campsite.

Above, you can see the creek and the cliff face that separated our camp from the creek.  The sound was very relaxing.
     We hiked around and saw the falls and I got some pretty good pictures of them as can be seen below.

There was even a program that we went to on snakes that took place of Friday evening.  It was really fun.  The presentation ended with the guy telling us about the venomous snakes in TN.  He stated that of them the Copperhead is the most common in the state.  Then he added that it was the most common snake in the park and that we had probably passed five hiking that day without even noticing.  This led to a weekend of copperhead jokes and fictitious copperhead sightings.  It was a really fun trip.  I got lots of exercise and was able to relax at some points.  It wasn't really clear enough for me to take my rain-fly down and sleep under the stars, but I got to test out the reliability of my tent. 

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