February 17, 2021 - Hanson to Pembroke

 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.

On the left, the planned route from N back to the road, then on past the Pembroke Town Forest. 
On the right, what we really did.

Back in the day when I had a job (in the rapidly receding past), I shared an office with Naomi. We had our little jokes as co-workers do and one long running one was using the NATO Phonetic Alphabet for profane acronyms. The NATO Phonetic Alphabet is the one used by the military for clear spelling over the air, e.g. “Alpha Bravo”. We’d take a “dirty word” and use the “military spelling”. A favorite example was calling someone a “Delta Bravo”.  I still revert to those epithets today. Another favorite was adopting the military euphemism “Charlie Foxtrot”, and that perfectly describes today’s walk on the BCT with Sulu.

I started with great confidence and optimism. The day was sunny, the temperature was hovering around freezing, and I hoped a recent rain had melted most of the snow. The parking lot at Cranberry Cove in Hanson-owned Camp Kiwanee was an inhospitable floe of bumpy ice, but I parked on the side and hoped that these were the worst conditions I’d encounter today.

My first mission was to walk back down the access road to my turnaround spot on Route 58. The access road was completely free of snow and ice. I did notice immediately that there was a cold breeze slicing off Maquan Pond. 

For the first time in my whole BCT journey I was carrying a pack. The pack was for the convenience of the dog as it contained his boots and coat. I didn’t expect bad conditions but I wanted to be prepared. Today we leave leash-obsessed Hanson and cross into Pembroke which I am hoping has more liberal leash laws (from a glance at their website, it looks like they expect dogs to be “under control”).

The gatehouse

The trail off the access road into the Alton J. Smith reserve started right before the gatehouse to the former estate.  Where people have walked before, bumpy ice footprints formed and it was slow going.  Once we got into the sun, the trail was less icy.

View of the bog, Alton Smith Reserve

The trail led to a former cranberry bog, so fully exposed sunny walking. It looked like they are letting the cranberry bog revert to a natural swamp.

The sunshine brought out the birds. First I saw a goodly flock of robins and then a small flock of beautiful Eastern bluebirds.

I really did not take into account sunny versus shady. I’m not sure how I could have prepared better. I do own ice cleats from that really icy winter we had a few years back, but they don’t do well on paved areas. If I’m carrying a pack on a future trip I guess I can throw them in there too.

The trail was well marked from the parking area around the bog, and I felt well supported.

This footprint makes my booted foot look petite.

There are some very large footprints here. Some of the size may be down to melting making things appear bigger but some are very large. I took a picture of one early on in the trail with my foot for scale and the other a little further on with Sulu’s foot for scale. Bears? (no, according to the Internet, bears have five toes).

As I proceeded confidently down the “old cart path” I noticed that we were nearing a busy road.  I must have missed some turn, I thought, and backtracked to the last blaze.  AllTrails doesn’t show the BCT in this location, but I was able to compare the shape of the line of my route in AllTrails to the BCT map and see approximately where I went wrong.

I reviewed the instructions: I was on a wide flat sandy road which could be called an old cart path. I went up a hill to investigate another trail but the directions didn’t say anything about a hill and it looked more like “new motorbike jump path” than "old cart path”. Back we went the way we came, paying extra attention for blazes and examining side trails.

I got to the point where I turned around before. I decided to keep straight on the old cart path. We came to another formerly cultivated area where there were a lot of trails to the right - the berms between the bogs -  but none of those were the actual trail.

Up onto Route 14

The trail ended and we clambered up to the busy road - a completely random place on Route 14, not mentioned in the directions anywhere. There was no kiosk anywhere in sight. According to Google Maps, the trail head for the Andruk Bogs, which is adjacent to the Alton J. Smith reserve where we started, was nearby so I decided to walk up there and see if I could intersect the BCT from there.

At that point I wasn’t sure if I was in Pembroke or Hanson, but I was walking on a sidewalk (if covered in ice most of the time) and I appreciated the gesture.

A little walking brought us to the Hanson/Pembroke town line (and an appealing honey stand). Reviewing Google Maps again, it looks like we overshot the entrance to the bog. We reversed direction again and with phone in hand, located the unmarked entrance to the bog trail.

I was dismayed to find that the trail made a fork with the trail I took to get to Route 14 - I didn’t even get 200 feet. 

So, a new plan. I looked at the map and I saw that the BCT goes through Pembroke Town Forest.  The trail goes right through the parking lot for the forest, so I routed myself via Google Maps to the parking lot for the forest, which is only .4 miles on foot. I will try to pick up the trail there.

Walking toward the forest I saw a BCT blaze indicating turning right onto Route 14 at the rotary, so all may not be lost.

What a muddle. Google thought the Town Forest Entrance was the  entrance to the town of Pembroke DPW for all cars and people. I went in there and didn’t see any blazes or signage. Reviewing the directions it looks like the trail comes out through the playing field parking lot which is next door to the DPW so I re-backtracked to go there. Approaching the entrance to the ballfields there’s a flutter of three BCT blazes close to each other which honestly just made me mad, because where were they when I needed them?

Hooray! We finally connected with on the trail!  As I entered the J.J. Shepherd Memorial Forest (not the Town Forest, possibly part of the problem) at the top of the parking lot I let Sulu off leash for the first time in a long time. It felt really good. 

JJ Shepherd Memorial forest with poodle

BCT blazes were in full force, but the footing was just OK. The forest trail connects with where we were before via a path along a canal.  Alongside the canal the footing was especially treacherous. Slushy footprints on the narrow trail had re-frozen over rooty terrain slanted down toward the water.

Does this look stressful to you? If so, I have succeeded.

We finally arrived back where we departed from the BCT and I was able to piece it together in my mind. Finally! 

Here are my observations:

1. The kiosk on the town line is a figment of their imagination - what should have been a major landmark was completely absent.
2. The pair of signs that I thought indicated keep going in this direction from each direction actually meant I was supposed to turn right
3. The blaze I didn’t see when I investigated that path is buried deep in the woods and I only noticed it coming back in the return direction. 

However all’s well that ends well.  We made it back to the car safely in one piece (or is that two pieces - one for me and one for the dog?). I didn’t meet my mileage goals but at least Sulu got to run free in Pembroke for a little while.

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