A November walk.
We got out of the house around 10 and headed over to Lincoln to explore Adams Woods, a Lincoln Land Conservation property. It is about 100 acres in size and borders Walden Pond. The first challenge was finding a trailhead access point and a place where we could park the car. Talking to a guy raking leaves I find out it was just behind the sign that says “No Parking.” Once that was all behind us, and we got the boy in his carrier and on our back, we were on our way.
It was a beautiful fall day and the property, and the trails, were just great. The center of Adams Woods is fairly flat and level but around the edges there are some ups and downs around various water related features. To the south, and along what is roughly the boundary, is a trail that runs along what is called Heywood’s Brook. It ends at a meadow, which in turn looks out over Fairhaven Bay. To the northwest are Andromeda Ponds. These are a series of bog ponds that Thoreau visited and wrote about in his journal. This was not a far walk for Thoreau as the ponds and this property border the southwestern edge of Walden Pond.
There were a number of horses out and about on the trails, and even more runners, but all of our encounters with others were pleasant. The various water bodies and the related topography associated with them were really great. The New England woods in autumn are interesting enough but with all the leaves off the trees you could really see into some nice brooks, wetlands, and the bogs.
Some of the reading I did about Adams Woods in the “Guide to Conservation Land in Lincoln” says that things look much different here in the past. The small meadow stretched along the whole length of Heywood’s Brook, for instance. It is also sure that this being Massachusetts that the forest throughout here has been reworked in many ways. This includes Thoreau and a friend starting a forest fire when they were cooking some fish.
