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Blue Hills Hike

On Tuesday, Aug 11th I headed up to Milton/Quincy to do a 4-5 mile hike in Blue Hills Reservation. The inside portion of my right foot has been hurting ever since I took a spill on a mountain bike back several weeks ago. I wanted to see just how it would hold up to a good hike, as I’m planning to leave for the AT in a couple weeks.

I parked in the small lot on Chickatawbut Road off of Rte 28 & headed for the Chickatawbut Tower. This tower is a historic observation tower built in 1930. At this time it’s closed off, unlike the Eliot Tower, which allows people to go up & check out the views of Boston & beyond from up top. I’ve done a Google search for more info on this tower, but haven’t found much more than that.

Across from the tower & down the hill a few hundred yards is an overlook parking area. This day was clear, though humid, & allowed for some good views of Boston. Being a Tuesday, there wasn’t nearly as many people out hiking today as on the weekends. That was fine for me, as I felt like being alone. My buddy Skippy wasn’t with me. Feeling that it was a bit too humid, I opted to leave him home. He’ll be hiking other days.

There’s a picnic area between the overlook & tower. A couple of benches & two stone grills on opposing sides of the walkway leading up to the tower. It was about 25 mins or so into my hike when I stopped here to grab a bite to eat. I had no planned course to follow when I got up here, just sort of whipped out the map & decided in the parking lot after arriving.

My hike consisted of following along the Skyline Trail, turning onto the Red Dot Trail, the Yellow Dot Trail, winding along several of the lesser walked paths, back onto the Skyline & finally, following the Red Dot Trail out to the parking lot. It was about 2 hours time.

All in all, the foot held up fine & didn’t cause me any pain. Deep down I feared that it could have a hairline fracture. Now I’m beginning to think that either the bone is bruised or possibly a pinched nerve is giving me discomfort. Either way, it was no problem & I trust it’ll be ok on the AT.

I’ve spoken with my friend Aboman through email a few times in the past weeks. He’s planning on driving down to see me at some point when I reach the Shenandoah region. It’ll be real good to see him again, catch up on what’s going on in each other’s lives. He’s invited me to stay at his place for a day or two, rest up & drop me back on the trail. I’m looking forward to seeing him. Another friend, Half Ounce, has been going through instructor training up at NOLS. He’s doing great in being certified for leading backpacking, white water & mountaineering trips. I wish him all the luck in getting work with NOLS once he’s finished with his training.

I’ll be posting a few more times before heading out to the trail. There’s several more day hikes & miles of bicycling to do to help keep my legs tuned for the mountains of the AT. I’m getting yancy just thinking about it.

~Steve, The Pilgrim.

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Pilgrim, August 14th 2009 | Tags: blue hills reservation, hiking, massachusetts hiking
Posted in blue hills reservation, hiking, massachusetts hiking

Blue Hills Skyline Trail

Saturday, March 28th I hiked across the Blue Hills Reservation via the Skyline Trail. My sweetheart, Beth, along with Skippy Bones, our Toy Fox Terrier, & a couple other friends decided to take advantage of the proposed nicest day of the weekend, at least according to the forecast. Wouldn’t ya know it, the meteorologists were right on; Saturday was a great day for hiking, sunny & in the 50s, and Sunday was a little cooler and rained most of the day. The hike was filled with good climbs, great views & lots of interaction with other people out for a day hike. Skippy also met some new buddies along the trail.

Since the Skyline Trail isn’t a loop but in a linear direction, we took two cars. The first car, being the destination car, was parked at the Shea Ice Skating Rink in Quincy. The four of us then drove to Canton and parked in a lot off of Rte. 138. Looking at the map above, about 1 1/2 inches from the left side, the western section, there’s a small green dot. That was our starting point. On the far east (right side) of the reservation is a red dot, our ending position. From one end to the other of the Skyline Trail is about 9 miles, though we skipped a small portion to the west of Rte. 138, our starting point, which accounts for another mile or so. So all in all, we hiked about 8 miles that day. Good time!

If you’ve never hiked any part of Blue Hills before, & you live within an hour’s drive, you should check it out. On the last mile or so of our trip, we came across some rock climbers on Rattlesnake Hill. Each year, the Boston Chapter of the AMC hosts The Beginner Rock Climbing Program. They happened to be there that same day, so we stopped for a few minutes & watched. I’ve never done any climbing, but am seriously interested in doing it. Maybe this time next year Beth & I will set aside the time to do it.

This hill was the last good climb on the day, with the back side being a good cool down period, as we moved through the St. Moritz Ponds area. Somewhere near Rattlesnake Hill a few years back, Skippy & I came across a couple Timber Rattlesnakes that were mating. That was awesome! The month was August and, from what I’ve read, is the time when they do mate. Skip had scared them off into a bush just as I was about to snap off a couple great pics. But I moved slowly, further into the bushes and still managed to get some fairly nice pics of the 2 snakes. One was very dark, maybe even black colored, and about 4 feet long. The other was smaller, 2 1/2 – 3 feet in length, and tan & yellow. Timber Rattlers come in a wide range of colors, and along with the Copperhead, are the only poisonous snakes found in Massachusetts.

Check out these other links for Blue Hills info, as well as some regarding Timber Rattlesnakes & Copperheads.

www.timberrattlesnake.net

www.copperheadsnake.net

www.umass.edu/nrec/snake_pit/

www.mass.gov/dcr/parks/metroboston/blue.htm

~The Pilgrim.