Bay Circuit Diary

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 the purple asterisk to G Through Internet sleight of hand (I dropped a pin on Google Maps and saved it) we have actually found where we left off in Rowley on 5/31! On arrival, Walter checked the weather and learned that rain was predicted to begin imminently. Without rain clothes, we decided to wait it out and listen to our audiobook ( The Ionian Mission , book 7 in the Aubrey-Maturin series). When the rain abated we took off on the trail: a series of eskers overlooking ponds. Route 95 sounded really loudly in the distance. We came down off the esker via some lovely landscape timber steps and across an elegant boardwalk across the pond. ...

  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 before M to the asterisk Urban navigation on the BCT is challenging because the trail is not well differentiated from the sidewalks and the parks.  There’s no official trail parking so I secured a random street spot. Added to that, I was trying to follow the trail “backwards” (south to north) which is always more difficult. Once more it was me, Sulu, and Benny in the stroller. After finding the trail, it turned out that the paved trail along the Merrimack River   was blocked off for some kind of construction.  This is a bit neglected but lovely stretch of trail.  The trail starts where the Concord River comes i...

  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 D, and a ways toward F Back on the trail again for the second attempt at the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail in Chelmsford. Don't ask where the past few months have gone! In classic style we started out by walking in the wrong direction, but fortunately only .1 mile. Also characteristically I ended up going north instead of south but as we parked at an intermediate point, either direction was fine. The trail is a dedicated rail trail, so paved, with fences on both sides and about a yard of green space between parking lots in the backs of businesses here in Chelmsford. It was marginally too hot for Sulu. My weather app showed the air...

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 D to the purple asterisk Our trip started at Route 1 in Ipswich, where there was a convenient roadside parking spot. We survived the very scary road crossing. The weather was unseasonably cold today (about 60). The trip divided itself into four sections in my mind. First we traveled a woodland trail through mixed trees featuring wild lily of the valley on the forest floor. I enjoyed seeing my favorite, princess pine. Although the directions in the trail guide are intimidating, the trail was well blazed. Spring comes late to the wood, and the main sign was lots of tiny woodland wildflowers (shout-out to the app Pictur...

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. Sul...

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 B to D Google misled us on the way to the trailhead (I do seem to write that a lot!) but we figured it out and enjoyed a picnic lunch where we left off at Linebrook Road last time.  We enjoyed lamb sandwiches from local favorite Dave’s Fresh Pasta . We were charmed to see wild columbines lining our path. From L to R: Golden Ragwort (Packera aurea), Starflower (Lysimachia borealis), Cinnamon Fern (Osmundastum cinnamomeum), and Azure Bluet (Houstonia cerulea) Many species of birds were taunting us from the trees. Frogs calling in the marsh drew our attention and we stopped to listen more than once. We recorded the bullfrog songs at one sp...

  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 A to B Despite having been at the parking area for Prospect Hill a week ago, getting to it from home took a bit of navigation as it’s not on Google Maps.  However we triangulated from all available resources and made it to the trailhead.  I felt a sense of relief to be on a real woods trail for the first time in what seemed like months and to be able to let the dog off leash.  Once more, the BCT brought us to an obscure, lightly trafficked trail.  Although the area is posted for on-leash, there were no cars in the parking area, so I took the chance of letting Sulu off leash. The weather was delightful, around 60 de...