November 16, 2020 - Walpole to Route 1 (and practically Sharon)

November 16, 2020

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.

From E to F, basically

After almost three weeks since Sulu and I were last in Walpole, we were back on the BCT. We were fortunate to have a sunny day for our walk. We parked at a Town Forest lot and found the BCT pretty easily. Walpole has earned high marks from me for abundant accessible open space and a strong commitment to sidewalks. It's surprising how rare that is. My plan was to backtrack to the high school where we left off, return on the same trail to the car, and continue south.

The forest road provided a beautiful path, but shame about the leash law (it’s well signed, so I can’t pretend ignorance either). Furthermore, the locals are compliant with the leash law, if not the mask law, so I dutifully kept Sulu on lead. With the leaves down the Neponset River on my right is more visible. I hear chickadees with their funny nasal chirp.

Neponset River. Obviously not obscured by trees here.

It turned out first, that my sense of direction has not improved at all after all these hikes, and secondly, I was heading in the opposite direction from the high school. No problem, I just kept going. The wide sunlit trail as well marked and easy traveling. I saw two young deer right before the town well building. I don’t usually see daytime deer. Possibly off-lead Sulu is a deer repellent.

Well maintenance

The Walpole Water System Pump Station (now Water Treatment Station) is a cool building. I couldn’t decide if it’s really old, like Victorian era, or just meant to look like it. I couldn’t even tell if the roof is slate or fake slate. Maybe part of the building is old and part is new? I did a little research when I got home and learned that the building dates to 1895, from the period of brick public buildings with gracious arched windows. The chimney hinted at that. But it’s really well maintained, and I believe has been expanded gracefully. The chimney was for the coal-fired pumping station, since the building also pre-dates widespread electrification. Walpole gets its water from a series of deep wells, two of which I passed on the trail (and another of which I passed at Mine Brook). Walpole's water supply was developed slightly ahead of the Boston-based Metropolitan Water District, although the MWRA (it’s successor) does provide sewer services to Walpole.

After following the trail to the right of the Water Treatment building, the BCT dives into the woods with an unmarked entrance. Technically, there was a blaze about 150 feet in, but if not for the Alltrails app I would have been wandering around a lot longer. This segment of trail on Water Department property I did not deem part of the Town Forest, and on the way back I gave Sulu a taste of off-leash freedom here.

Once leaving the town water complex, the trail crosses Washington Street (by the way, this is the same Washington Street that originates in downtown Boston) and back onto Town Forest property. There was a lovely large BCT sign showing the trail entrance there.

For the first 500 feet in from Washington Street there was a good showing of princess pine, one of my favorite woodland plants. Now that some hard frosts are behind us most of the foliage is brown and the few things that are green really catch the eye.

Princess pine. Not a pine.

I used the Picture This app to identify a few:

I was kind of excited to see busy Route 1 from the trail - it’s one of those “watershed” roads that define the Boston area. I’ve crossed Route 2, I’ve crossed I-90, and Route 1 and I-95 are next.

Somewhat ironically I lost the trail for a moment when the trail headed into an industrial park, but instead looped back into the woods. The absence of blazes clued me in and I did not go far off track.

I confidently came out from behind the loading bays (white privilege again) into an unprepossessing industrial estate. It was a weird hybrid of both business to business and business to consumer companies with uniform signage (i.e. not personalized with logos).

Acumentrics: because all the good names were taken

Crossing Route 1 was one of my most harrowing road crossings ever as there is no crosswalk and no pedestrian lights. The green light lasted exactly as long as it took for me and Sulu to run across four lanes. That’s run, not walk. At that point I did not realize how close I was to the Sharon town line. I probably would have pushed ahead just for the thrill of it, but now I have something to look forward to.

Looking across Route 1, waiting for the light

The 3 mile return trip to the trail junction where I picked the wrong way to the high school went smoothly. It was a short trip to the back of the high school where we left off last time.

The back of Walpole High School

The most noteworthy thing was that we went through a hemlock wood.

As most suburbanites know, hemlocks up and down the East coast are being decimated by a pest called the woolly adelgid. For example, when the BCT directions were written (2017), there was a hemlock wood before the industrial park that now is just stumps. I saw some woolly adelgid infestation on these trees too, alas.