West Hill Dam
Posted By auntie on July 7, 2018
2.87 miles; Uxbridge and Northbridge, MA
This was a short PCHC/Blackstone Valley Heritage Corridor hike on this Corps of Engineers property in Uxbridge, MA. This dam is unusual in that it does not create a body of water; it is strictly for flood control. We had a lovely cool and sunny day.
Fearless Leader Ernie (who always gets the BEST weather… at least when I join the hikes) at the Uxbridge/Northbridge line
I’ve hiked this property once before, doing the entire 4+ mile loop, but this hike was only on the southern end of that hike. It did, however, take in smaller side trail I missed last time, the West River Trail.
Road Lily
I’ve always called this common orange daylily a Road Lily, but according to Wikipedia, it is a lily of many names: Hemerocallis fulva, the orange day-lily, tawny daylily, tiger daylily, fulvous daylily or ditch lily (also railroad daylily, roadside daylily, outhouse lily, and wash-house lily). I like Outhouse Lily. Imma call it that from now on!
Royal Ferns
Besides Outhouse Lilies, the West River Trail also had an abundance of Royal Fern. I think this is such an elegant plant, but I might be perhaps subliminally influenced by the name. I mean, how could a fern called “royal” be anything but elegant?
Slime Mold! My Favorite Mold!
This orange-red mess is actually a Red Raspberry Slime Mold, Tubifera ferruginosa. Slime molds are very cool. They aren’t attached to a vast network of “roots,” like fungus, and can move to where the food is. And check out the beautiful lichens and mosses on this log, too.
Wildlife!
More Wildlife!
Just north of the dam on the return leg of the loop we came across a lovely little “butterfly” garden which was planted by a local Girl Scout troop. It had quite a few common milkweed plants, and I stopped to look for monarch butterflies or caterpillars. No monarchs, but I did see a grasshopper, a honeybee, and a lady bug. So milkweed is popular with a lot of creatures, not just monarch butterflies. Go plant some milkweed! I’ll wait…
Rudbeckia (Black-eyed Susans)
There were many many swathes of rudbeckia (I presume originally escapees from the butterfly garden) at the base of the dam on either side, and even a few little stands that managed to find a foothold ON the dam.
The West River
The river was about 42 feet below us as we crossed the dam. I don’t know how high the water in this river got back in 1955 during Hurricane Diane, but it must have been pretty bad. Here is an excerpt from a Worcester Telegram and Gazette article about the flooding written in 2011 when the dam celebrated its 50th birthday:
He watched the river overflow its banks and take what is now the parking lot for River Bend Farm and Tri-River Medical Center. He saw planks, barrels of dye and building materials bobbing against a wooden bridge on Henry Street, but despite the onslaught of debris, the wooden bridge remained while the street on either side washed away. He saw the flood waters rise to the second floor of the Waucantuck Mill.
Hurricane Diane dumped between 12 and 20 inches of rain across the state, which had already been pummeled by a previous storm. The flooding killed 90 people and caused more than $540 million in damage to the New England area.
What he remembers most about when the rain stopped wasn’t the birthday cake his mother baked for him over a kerosene heater, it was the bakery truck that was parked in the employee parking lot of the Waucantuck Mill.
“It wasn’t there when the rain started, but there it was when it ended. How did it get there when every access road was washed away? It didn’t take him long to be cleared out of bread and pastries when we all lined up,” Mr. Henry said. “But that is the one thing that puzzles me to this day.”
Cool.
You can read more about West Hill Dam Park on this Army Corps of Engineers website. As always, click the image above for details about this hike and to download the gps track.
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