Tomorrow, the 1st

Tomorrow we will be heading to Purgatory Chasm in Sutton, MA. If you are interested in coming with us, email or call one of our cell phones. We have a new home phone number, so our old home number won't work.

Wood's Hole

Sunday the weather turned out to be beautiful so we called up Scott and set up last minute plans to meet and head down to the Cape for a hike. Scott wrote a great report of the hike on his blog.



We followed the bike path from Falmouth to Wood's Hole. The walk out was 3.3 miles through wetlands, along the beach and through the forest. In the wetland's part we saw some giant swans and some crazy berries that were pastel green, blue, and purple.



We ate lunch at the point where the river met the ocean. There were a bunch of fish at the mouth of the river trying to swim up it and some huge black birds sitting on a dock.



In the forest we saw some walls of an abandoned stone building and posed for some pictures.



Then the path led through the middle of a parking lot for the ferries to the islands. We followed the path into town and wandered around ending up at the Oceanographic Institute, which unfortunately was closed but we did get to see a harbor seal that the have in an outdoor pen. We walked along the docks and saw a seagull throw something up, it was very nature channel. We stopped in "Jimmy's" and got ice cream cones that we had to gulp down because they were melting so fast and dripping all over.




On the way back we stopped and walked in the water at the beach. At one point, back on the path I saw a snake and came close to jumping in front of a biker to get away from it. Scott was impressed by my snake-spotting skills.

I would totally recomend this hike, it was beautiful.

Update

The weatherman lies.

T-storms

Well, they are predicting thunder storms and rain for today, so we won't be hiking.

There are only two more hikes officially scheduled, but if you love autumn hiking and were hoping for a certain location or a specific date let us know and we can schedule more.

Scott suggested a paved walkway from Falmouth to Wood's Hole, which sounds really nice, so hopefully he will tell us a time when he is free and we can all go together.

I am really, really glad that I started this Hike Club. It forced Pat and I to spend a lot more time outside than we would have if we didn't have hikes scheduled that we felt obligated to go on. We love the outdoors, but it is so easy to let the summer slip away without doing enough of the things you really love. And it was so good to connect with the friends that came with us and spend some time out in the woods having an adventure that is both fun and relaxing.

Whistling Cave

Yesterday Kim, Pat, and I drove to Upton, MA to find the Whistling Cave. It was a nice hike, very quiet, we couldn't hear any highway noises at all. We followed the Loop Road out to a very murky pond with some nice waterlillys. We ran into five groups of people- a couple with twins in backpacks and a giant yellow lab, a man by himself, a man with a big scary black dog that he made sit while we passed by, a guy on a bike, and an older couple.

On the way back we took the Whistling Cave Trail. We took some pictures with the rocks that earned the trail that name. I climbed through the "cave" which was really just a large rock resting on a smaller rock with a little passageway underneath.



After the wooded area filled with large boulders there was an unexpected steep hill before meeting up with the Park Road that led us back to the parking lot.

Blue Job Mountain

Sorry for the delay in posting about this hike, we had some technical difficulties.

Last Sunday Scott, Pat, and I headed to Strafford for the climb. The mountain was more of a steep hill and the climb up was pretty uneventful. The summit was below the tree line, but once we climbed the fire tower we had some great views.


On the way down the mountain we decided to explore a little and took a chance on a trail that we hoped would bring us back to our car by a different route. This alternative trail was much more interesting than the climb up. We walked through a mountaintop blueberry habitat that the state periodically burns to encourage growth. I don't really know how that works, but I though it was pretty interesting.

There were lots of blueberry bushes there with no berries and some berries that were blue but didn't look like traditional blueberries, so I wasn't about to test them out. We spoke with a woman in the habitat who said the whole area is just totally blue when they are in season and that she had just been there earlier in the month picking them. We also asked her if she thought the trail we were on might take us to a parking lot. She said no, but pointed us in the right direction. From there we left the blueberry habitat and headed through the woods and luckily ended up on the right path and back to our car.

It was a fun trip and if anyone else was considering going there I would definitely recommend taking the longer route to the top and going at the peak of blueberry season.