Posted By auntie on November 11, 2014

6.25 miles; pascoag, ri

hm. can’t say this hike has all that much to recommend it, although i’m willing to perhaps give buck hill another try. the reason i picked this was because i thought it would be cool to walk along the border, and of course, another visit to the tri-state marker is always fun. but meh…

buck hill

the trails through buck hill on this particular hike are on old woods roads, and as such, they’re kind of not interesting. also, i walked this on november 11, which was a holiday, so there were lots and lots of hunters on the property. lots. everyone was quite nice, but still, guns make me a little jumpy.

massachusetts border

this is the marker at the massachusetts border. the yellow triangle markers are for the mid-state trail, which runs through massachusetts up to new hampshire. and the blue blazes? those are for the north-south trail.

start of the north-south trail

which, as you can see, starts here. there are plans afoot to hike the entire north-south trail this spring, and not with the people who think a 14-mile section is okay.

stone foundations

just a bit north of the border you come to some amazing stone cellar holes. seriously, it’s an impressive complex of walls and foundations.

border marker

from the foundations you turn west to find the trail that hugs the ri-ma border. you know you’re on the right one because you see these pretty often. a bit further along you come to the ti-state marker. i’ve put up photos of this before, so you don’t need to see another, i’m sure. but there are 3 trails that radiate out from the marker. one comes from the airline trail in connecticut, one i just walked along from massachusetts, and the third is due south, along the rhode island-ct border. this is the one i took from here. i’ve been on all 3 now. yay, me.

border trail

this is the border trail. it looks just like this for about 1-1/2 miles. the trail is very rocky, and all those rocks are currently hidden under a 3-inch layer of oak leaves. it made for some interesting hiking. and i use “interesting” in the sense of that old chinese proverb, “may you live in interesting times.” did a lot of stumbling, tripping, and teetering through this stretch, and it took me a long time.

survey marker

so i can’t say i highly recommend this trail, unless you’re a geography geek and just get a kick out of seeing survey markers and border stones. which i kind of am.

i have added this hike to the hikefinder, but i got lazy and outsourced the map to everytrail.com.

Categories: Rhode Island, Walks and Hikes
Tags: 5–7 miles, Pascoag RI, RI