February 24 - Pembroke: Tubb's Meadow Preserve

 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 S on the right to the P at Pembroke Town Forest and back again

We started at Tubb's Meadow conservation area which looks to be a favorite spot for dog walkers. There is a dumpster for poop bags and a poop bag dispenser. Also no signage at all about leashes, so Sulu got to run free. I would definitely recommend this site for dog walkers.  There are lots of trails and it’s off leash friendly.

The unnamed pond at Tubb's Meadow

The trail was pretty easy traveling. There was ice but was mostly slushy and a little mucky where it’s melting. The temperature was remarkably warm today (I think it hit 50 F during the walk) and sunny, so great day for a walk. I had my coat unzipped from the moment I left the parking lot.

I had some technology problems today - both my apps quit tracking me. I suppose I must’ve poked something accidentally when I was taking pictures of Sulu. I managed to restart them of course but I won’t have an accurate count of my mileage today. The way I found out my app wasn’t working was when I went to check my position on AllTrails. It turned out I missed a turn but I was able to take a shortcut back to the trail. I’m coming back this way so I’ll still complete the BCT mileage for this area.

Humans love this stuff

After picking up the trail, I can’t blame the BCT for this one: it’s a small side trail up the hill but the approach was clearly signed and I just missed it. Perhaps I was looking at my feet or my dog too much.

The trail let out onto busy Route 36. Again there was ambiguous signage on the far side of the road. There was a fork, one side of which has quite a bit a car traffic visible in the snow and the other, a nice sandy trail. There were blazes on the left toward the car road but I couldn’t see any going forward. It looked like from the map that the trail goes to the right - where I wanted to go - and AllTrails appeared to show the same (of course I preferred the less traveled, less icy route). Unfortunately after looking at the trace I made on AllTrails, I should’ve taken the icy trafficked road. So back we go. This just shows the challenges of following the BCT from south to north instead of from north to south as the directions are written.

Deer tracks (1 and 2) and rabbit tracks

We passed behind an elementary school with recess in full swing.  Even though there was a chain link fence between us and the children, I put Sulu on leash to give the appearance of being a good citizen. I finally let Sulu off leash again when the trail turned to a woods trail without any tire tracks. According to the directions I expected to have about half a mile before I needed to leash him up. I met another BCT hiker during this section - once identified by her backpack.  She wasn’t very chatty so I did not tell her about this blog.

This Cape Cod-like terrain has a lot of water features. Some are human-made ponds for the cranberry industry, but there are a some kettle ponds like those on the Cape. Besides Maquan Pond at Camp Kiwanee from last time, I also saw Oldham Pond, Furnace Pond, and Great Sandy Bottom Pond on my Charlie Foxtrot tour of Pembroke.Today took us by Little Sandy Bottom Pond, and I can see more ponds on the map. The ponds are surrounded by cottages and summer stuff.

Little Sandy Bottom Pond

The turnaround point

Once I was on the road walking to the turnaround point I fired up my audiobook.  The BCT designers thoughtfully routed the trail on an access road paralleling the main road, which came out at the ballfields.  I remain mystified about the blazes I saw further up the main road last time.
On the way back, with no errors in routing, I noticed a lot of melting had happened since my way out a few hours past and that made the footing easier. I ran into my fellow traveller again. Since she, like me, is on her own, she also has to walk the trail twice.

I remembered to dose Sulu with tick protection a few days ago. I haven’t seen any ticks but this is the kind of weather when they might make an appearance.

We’ll start at Tubb's Meadow next time.

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