May 24, 2021 - Tewksbury

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 K to the asterisk and back again

Due to limited time, I chose a somewhat random segment of the Bay Circuit Trail that had the shortest travel time from home.  The weather was warm, in the high 60s but felt warmer.

Last June, Sulu and I began a convenient segment from Map 4 in Andover. The segment we chose today didn't connect exactly with that part, but had convenient parking. 

We started at the Tewksbury water pumping station. There wasn’t parking outside the gate as the directions promised so we parked in front of the building, crossing our fingers that the car would still be there and the gate would be open on our return. Sulu, Walter, and I, with Benny in his stroller proceeded down River Road and were disappointed that the sidewalk vanished so quickly leaving us on a rather pedestrian hostile busy road.

Jesse Trull House on River Road c1891

Saint Mary’s Cemetery is also dog hostile. I have learned that dog rules in cemeteries vary widely, so I was hopeful we would be able to walk with the dogs on the paved road. Not being able to enter caused a problem because there was no clear access to the path along the Merrimack River without going through the cemetery. The sign at the entrance stated “no dog walking in the cemetery”. So I obeyed the letter of the law, zipping Sulu into the dog stroller and carrying Benny, the lighter of the two. No dog feet touching the ground here.

We did get some dirty looks from family members. We were able to follow the directions through the gate and parked the stroller behind a dumpster. The dumpster concealed the entrance to the path. The path is pretty crummy. It’s at the foot of a sort of a berm or raised up area which might be a landfill or maybe it’s the new part of the cemetery. There was scattered debris from the stuff that they clean off the grave sites like seasonal decorations and fake flowers.

Yes, this is the trail

After maybe 100 yards of ick the trail became a beautiful woodland trail. Walter observed that these woods are 100% deciduous which is unusual for the BCT.

Unfortunately we ran out of time and had to turn around once we got to the river. Walter was disappointed that the ratio of road walking to trail walking was so poor. Benny was a trooper since he had to walk on his own little feet from where we left the stroller to the river and back again. I did carry him through the cemetery but his little bulk gets heavy pretty fast.

Bird's foot trefoil (invasive)

Ragged-robin

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