Tri-Town Hike 2017
Posted By auntie on November 4, 2017
12.94 miles; Medfield, Dover, and Westwood, MA
This was the big annual hike sponsored by the Trustees of the Reservations in Massachusetts, which goes through Medfield, Dover, and Westwood. Beautiful day and beautiful hike, and I met some very nice folks. And this time I took almost NO shortcuts!
The Start at Sen Ki
The hike began at the Sen Ki Reservation (pdf file) in Westwood. From the Westwood Land Trust page on this property,
The property’s name is from the Abenaki term meaning essentially “Land of Stone”, suggesting the natural beauty of the property and reflective of the site’s Native American history.
Um, they were so not kidding. Rocks, rocks, rocks. However, this place rocks. It is beautiful, too.
Beautiful
From Sen Ki, we entered the massive (1,137 acres) Hale Reservation which wraps around Noanet Pond. Hale is run by a private non-profit, and besides having a mess of hiking trails, they run day camps, summer camps, after school programs, and many other programs. They also have a considerable infrastructure in terms of cabins, docks, and tent sites.
Docks
There’s another part of Hale called Camp Grossman on Powissett Pond, which is a Jewish day camp.
Beach at Camp Grossman
I really liked the signage here…
Sassafras
There was still some color in the woods here, but not as much as I remembered from last year, when the blueberry bushes were still a brilliant red color.
Boston Skyline (trust me)
The hike then took us through Noanet Woodlands, where we got a glimpse of the Boston skyline from Noanet Peak (387 feet). You can kind of see it just to the right of the foreground shrubbery. Right? You can, can’t you? Well trust me, it’s there.
Oak Trees on Powisset Farm
From Noanet Woodlands, we crossed onto Powisset Farm, a Trustees-owned working farm which operates a CSA, where they fed us hot soup and cider and lovely fresh bread. And there was a nice bathroom. The final 4 miles were through a neighborhood with a bit of road-walking, one of those developers’ open space easements, and to Rocky Woods Reservation where the cars were parked. Awesome hike.
See the links to the individual properties, above, for more information about them. For more information about the Trustees of the Reservations, see their homepage. To find out about events like the Tri-town Hike, see their Events page. And as always, click on the image, above, for details about this hike and to download the GPS track.
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