dr_wu002
Well-known member
Metacomet-Monadnock Trail Section 17 & 18 (or "Long and Hard in Massachusetts") 8/19
Things started the usual way for Eric and I: a box of red markers, a tattoo in a sensitive area, and a greasy, creepy phone call after midnight. Section 17 and 18 of the Metacomet - Monadnock Trail seemed doable with a suitable carspot and both of us are interested in doing this whole trail now.
This is a section for anyone who loves walking through a mixed bag of woods and likes to go up and down a lot. Trailhead elevation was 1150', high point (Mt. Grace) was 1650' and total elevation gained over 17 miles or so was >4000'. Elevation profile looked something like this.
The woods are what made this a somewhat memorable hike. With all the recent posts about "Wilderness Crap" on VFTT, these sections of the M-M trail are refreshingly un-wilderness like. What I mean by that is that there is no pretense that this is a wilderness area, but in my mind it seemed less "artificial" as our New England Wilderness areas generally appear to me. You cross roads, power-line cuts, find silly signs, see houses occasionally, but rarely see people and it's actually pretty quiet -- not much road noise at all. And you see a lot of history as well as you constantly shift from woods roads to abandoned farm roads or country roads, swamp areas, back to woods roads, into and out of logged areas, grown up logged areas, obvious town-forest planted areas and into areas that are basically blazed bushwhacks. The woods are mostly open hemlock, pine and birch and these sections features some truly massive trees (mostly pines) and a lot of varied ground scrub.
We walked for a ways and eventually reached the top of Mt. Grace. Aside from some loser walking his crazy dogs we hadn't seen a single person until Mt. Grace. I expected to see some people here due to close proximity to a road but when we got there we had the summit and (locked) fire tower to ourselves. Eventually a family with two nice dogs and a dude with a caterpillar on his shoulder (F'ing literally) showed up while we were eating lunch. We chatted with them for a few minutes and when we decided to split, another family who appeared to be geo-caching arrived. We left and continued on section 18.
Section 18 is well blazed but confusing if you try to follow the Massachusetts Trail Guide or the freakin' quad due to so many reroutes. You first go through a logged area with lots of blackberry bushes. Unfortunately for us a bear got there first and ate all the ripe, juicy blackberries leaving us with the small bitter ones. And then the bear, in a twisted act of mockery, left us a raspberry-sorbet colored, seed-filled, gigantic turd right on the trail so as to remind us of who got there first. To make matters worse, Eric ran ahead of me and ate any blackberries that seemed ripe leaving me to scavenge around the forest floor for edible pine cones. After this, the up and down up and down up and down up and down terrain resumed followed by a swamp (which didn't correspond to anything that I saw on the map) and then a largely rerouted section through even more hills. Then we seemed to wander all over the place until I finally found an area that seemed to remind me of something I had read in the book. Up another hill, we crossed "Bliss Road" (or something like that) and finished the last 0.9mi through first dark woods then oops, suddenly wide open canopy of scrub and enormous pine trees. Without the excellent blazing though, you'd be completely screwed (not to mention hopelessly lost!)
This is the type of hike that is working for me (and presumably Eric) these past few weeks: walking for 9 hours through pretty, open woods, some views and short freakin' drives from home. Massachusetts is kinda my type of place to hike and I'm glad I'm finally discovering what it has to offer.
-Dr. Wu
Things started the usual way for Eric and I: a box of red markers, a tattoo in a sensitive area, and a greasy, creepy phone call after midnight. Section 17 and 18 of the Metacomet - Monadnock Trail seemed doable with a suitable carspot and both of us are interested in doing this whole trail now.
This is a section for anyone who loves walking through a mixed bag of woods and likes to go up and down a lot. Trailhead elevation was 1150', high point (Mt. Grace) was 1650' and total elevation gained over 17 miles or so was >4000'. Elevation profile looked something like this.
The woods are what made this a somewhat memorable hike. With all the recent posts about "Wilderness Crap" on VFTT, these sections of the M-M trail are refreshingly un-wilderness like. What I mean by that is that there is no pretense that this is a wilderness area, but in my mind it seemed less "artificial" as our New England Wilderness areas generally appear to me. You cross roads, power-line cuts, find silly signs, see houses occasionally, but rarely see people and it's actually pretty quiet -- not much road noise at all. And you see a lot of history as well as you constantly shift from woods roads to abandoned farm roads or country roads, swamp areas, back to woods roads, into and out of logged areas, grown up logged areas, obvious town-forest planted areas and into areas that are basically blazed bushwhacks. The woods are mostly open hemlock, pine and birch and these sections features some truly massive trees (mostly pines) and a lot of varied ground scrub.
We walked for a ways and eventually reached the top of Mt. Grace. Aside from some loser walking his crazy dogs we hadn't seen a single person until Mt. Grace. I expected to see some people here due to close proximity to a road but when we got there we had the summit and (locked) fire tower to ourselves. Eventually a family with two nice dogs and a dude with a caterpillar on his shoulder (F'ing literally) showed up while we were eating lunch. We chatted with them for a few minutes and when we decided to split, another family who appeared to be geo-caching arrived. We left and continued on section 18.
Section 18 is well blazed but confusing if you try to follow the Massachusetts Trail Guide or the freakin' quad due to so many reroutes. You first go through a logged area with lots of blackberry bushes. Unfortunately for us a bear got there first and ate all the ripe, juicy blackberries leaving us with the small bitter ones. And then the bear, in a twisted act of mockery, left us a raspberry-sorbet colored, seed-filled, gigantic turd right on the trail so as to remind us of who got there first. To make matters worse, Eric ran ahead of me and ate any blackberries that seemed ripe leaving me to scavenge around the forest floor for edible pine cones. After this, the up and down up and down up and down up and down terrain resumed followed by a swamp (which didn't correspond to anything that I saw on the map) and then a largely rerouted section through even more hills. Then we seemed to wander all over the place until I finally found an area that seemed to remind me of something I had read in the book. Up another hill, we crossed "Bliss Road" (or something like that) and finished the last 0.9mi through first dark woods then oops, suddenly wide open canopy of scrub and enormous pine trees. Without the excellent blazing though, you'd be completely screwed (not to mention hopelessly lost!)
This is the type of hike that is working for me (and presumably Eric) these past few weeks: walking for 9 hours through pretty, open woods, some views and short freakin' drives from home. Massachusetts is kinda my type of place to hike and I'm glad I'm finally discovering what it has to offer.
-Dr. Wu
Last edited:
