We met up with some gates along some of the roads we wanted to take, so we wound up parking along Reservation Road and hoofing it.  It was a good day for a walk anyway with sunny then hazy/cloudy skies but light winds and temperatures reasonable for this time of year.

Our first stop was the middle hill:

There's one trail up, and that leads to the ridge along the top from which there's a nice view of the end of the south peak and then a great view to the south/southwest.

At the bottom of the trail for the middle hill, there's a cemetery.  The group stopped there for a little while.

Judging by the pictures, this is the same cemetery we saw during our trip to Pawtuckaway in August 2001, but at that time it was surrounded by foliage and had a good deal of ground cover, making it look like a different place.  So that's two cemeteries Your Webmaster knows about in Pawtuckaway, and rumor is there are four or five.

Round Pond had a thin layer of ice, clearly not safe enough to walk on.  There was a large crack running through the ice.  A solo female duck was hanging around in the reeds at the side of the pond...we were wondering what she was doing there and where all of her friends were.

Deb wandered into the boulder field near the pond, and she came back with a story about a balancing rock:

Apparently it wasn't a story!

And it turned out there's a geocache in the area, which we found without too much trouble.

Given the time and the short daylight hours, we decided to head to the fire tower instead of making our trek longer by going to the Boulder Field.  Those boulders are pretty big and aren't going anywhere - we'll get back there to see them next time.

The hike up the south ridge didn't make any friends, as there's a short but steep section.  Then a walk over the ridge brought us to the fire tower from which there are some nice views in all directions, including this one of Pawtuckaway Lake, also part of the state park:

With the sun getting lower in the sky, it was time for the four of us to head back to the cars.

DJ, Kris, and Deb ready to head out

It's there that the Wapack gets a little odd.  It follows dirt roads for a while, and it dumps you into an open area that someone has named:

"Teenage Wasteland"

We encountered some hunters out there, and they said they hadn't been having much luck. 

After a left turn at a "T" intersection , the trail bears to the right, and it goes by some kind of camp that's seen better days.

Binney Pond from the shoulder of Pratt Mountain.
Mt. Watatic is the tall lump in the back.

We went a bit further along the ridge and made it to Pratt Mountain proper.  Shortly after that there's a great view of Mt. Monadnock and to the northwest.

The wind was up, so we went back down to the spring for some late lunch before heading back to the car.  Given the short daylight hours at this time of year, we were about at dusk back at the state line, 1.4 miles from the parking lot.

By the time we got back to the car, there was little light left.  Well, we're about three weeks away from the winter solstice, so that's not surprising.  We had lamps, but we didn't need to use them this time.

The round trip turned out to be about 8.5 miles, give or take.  Click here for a KML file you can view in Google Earth of the trail from the shoulder of Pratt Mountain out to the trailhead on Rte. 119.  Below are some neat screen captures from Google Earth.

<-- From the south

After we visited the Wilderness Pond, we took Shoen Road and through some spooky woods.

Eventually we made our way to the big beaver dam at Spatterdock Pond.

It's a big beaver dam, and the pond it creates is pretty big as well.

We were joined by a bunch of people from Sub SIG on this cloudy but not terribly cold day.  Our walk started from the parking lot at the end of Sharpner's Pond Road, which is off Rte 114 at the border of North Andover and Middleton.  Note:  If you use a mapping tool like Google Maps to get here from, say, I95, you may be out of luck, as you may be routed through the State Forest on roads that don't exist (Stonecleave Rd.).  Look a bit to the left on the map and put Lacy St. as part of your route.

<-- A stop at the quarry.

<-- Beaver lodge on Towne Pond.

<-- Fording the raging stream.

<-- Awesome spooky woods, near the far point of our journey.

Salamander

Of the 16 of us, one person made his way back out from the far point at Crooked Pond, but the rest of us were going to head around the pond (which has flooded several roads in recent years because of beaver activity), up Mt. Eleanor (just a small hill), and then over to Bald Hill.

Bald Hill

As we paused to have some lunch, it became apparent that the wind was kicking up and the temperatures were going down.  Gloves and hats appeared, and it was time to get moving again to get warm and head home after our 7 or so mile trek!

Kris, her husband DJ, and I went over to Maudslay on this nice, sunny fall day, and we met up with Dave J.

Our first task was to find a geocache near the parking lot (it was very easy), and then we wandered the trails on the other side of the road from the main part of the state park.  Eventually we made it to the formal entrance to the estate , a gated gravel road leading to the main house through an open field.    Along the way we stopped to snag a few more geocaches, then we sat on the rocks overlooking the river (always a great spot for some snacks). 

As the sun went lower in the sky, we wandered out of the woods and back to the cars.