September 2, 2020 - Southborough: Sudbury Reservoir

Welcome to Susan's Bay Circuit Diary! This blog follows my adventures with my dog Sulu hiking the Bay Circuit Trail.  To get new posts in your inbox, please subscribe (see the little "subscribe" oval above). The rest of the past posts can be found using the little menu on the left.  If you are curious how this all started, go here.

I have completed Map 8! Today was poodle parlor day for Sulu, so I took advantage of his absence to complete the final segment of Map 8, the Sudbury Reservoir which does not allow dogs (or bicycles). I was last here in May.

It was my first rainy day hike. It was a gentle rain and did not at all make for a forced march.  I did that very English thing, hiking with an umbrella. The umbrella worked beautifully. The trail was wide and open, and I stayed dry without being overheated by the raincoat. The umbrella and the dog would have been incompatible as it would leave me with zero hands for anything else like the phone. 

The trail started as a wide dirt road going alongside the reservoir. It felt very weird to not be with the dog - I think he would have enjoyed this trip very much. 

Wouldn't a dog complete the picture?

I entered an allée of cedar trees, which quickly turned into a one-sided border of cedar trees on the uphill side that ran for about half a mile.  The land for the reservoir was taken in the 1890s from a large landowner.  The landscape is maintained but not meticulously, so the cedars are struggling. 

Combined with my woods walking, the book The Paradise of All These Parts I mentioned in the last post, and a fiction book, The Overstory, I've become much more interested in identifying specific tree and plant species.  I can tell an oak from a maple, and could probably stretch to identifying two dozen species, but trees tell the story of our biome: what was here before us, what we brought, and what is moving in due to climate change.  I can't easily characterize The Overstory. It's structured like a tree: It begins with separate stories (I almost bailed because I thought I was getting a novel and instead I was reading seemingly unconnected short stories), the stories come together in a trunk, and then the characters branch apart. Trees are the theme of each story and the whole story.  There are a lot of mini-epiphanies that make characters want to learn more about trees.  So, why not me? I will get the app Picture This and learn more about the trees around me, both in the city and on my walks.

I made a couple of forays off the trail to catch the view, and saw the rain stippling the reservoir. The gentle rain made the birds very quiet. I could hear the traffic on the Mass Pike even though it’s over two miles away.

This really is a five star trail aside from the drawback of no bikes or dogs allowed. The way is easy and wide,  and the reservoir is in view the whole time. It’s pleasant to walk beside a reservoir like this because there are no lake shore homes or boats to break the illusion that you’re in unspoiled nature. The width of the trail is a benefit as it allows for social distancing from other hikers, a plus in “these unprecedented times”.

Despite not bringing the dog, I didn’t see a lot of wildlife. I saw one gray squirrel cross the path and I saw a chipmunk hole but that’s about it.

Sulu would really have liked this mudhole

After about two miles of beautiful broad trail the BCT takes a sharp right and heads up hill on a conventional woodland trail through through young pines. The trail was really well marked today. Fortunately I was still able to use my umbrella. It’s your basic New England woods trail with pine trees, on the side and roots and rocks underfoot.

Typical New England trail

The trail crosses Parmenter Road leaving the reservoir at your back and continuing on a more open trail with hardwoods. As I headed up the slope, the woods closed in some with mixed pine and hardwoods, becoming more pine as I climbed (by climb I mean a couple of hundred feet).

My turnaround point from when I was here last

The journey back to the car was uneventful. I felt very intrepid, having done an entire hike in the rain, but between the umbrella and Gore-Tex shoes, I stayed nice and dry.

I have now completed Maps 6, 7 and 8, with Maps 1A, 4, and 5B in progress, but my main focus now is Map 9 which is more than halfway complete.  

The part I did today is the orange line from near K to L

The only wildflower I saw.  Picture This identified it from my monitor as White Wood Aster.

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