Pre-ride GRSF

In the "old days" I rode dual sport bikes in the Georgetown-Rowley State Forest. Then they banned them. I have been back to the forest infrequently since then. Doing map recon though, it seems that there are trails that lead all the way through the GRSF and into Willowdale State Forest and into the Ipswitch Wildlife Sanctuary. I have wanted to try this out as a hike, but that never happened. So, I got the bright idea that I would try it as a ride. I went out to pre-ride some of it today and I was appalled. The forest has received almost no trail maintenance at all, unless you count countless pile of horse crap as maintenance! The trails that were there, for the most part, are gone. The main road is overgrown and no longer a road. It's a trail, The trails that were there before are mostly gone and grown over or swamped out. It's a shame really. With all that you hear about how ATVs and dirt bike destroy the land, it turns out that the only things keeping the land open for the other users were the ATVs and dirt bikes!

Deep Sea Fishing!

I went out for the first time ever today! Out of 30 or so people we scored 8-9 keeper Scup, Hadoc, Poluck and Cod. And two dozen or more Dogfish! A LOT of them. A couple of beers and some Sunburn and call it a day. Pretty proud of my Little Girl who was "doing it all on her own".

Legs Hurt today

Guess 8 miles with an extra 30 pounds is a good start.

Just me and the Boy

We expanded on yesterday's ride. 7.7 miles in 90 degree heat and humidity. We saw two beavers, on in the water one out of  the water. We also saw a weasel, two bunnies and a whole bunch of birds. We watched the Newburport bridge open up for a big sailboat to go through. At the end of it all, he was fighting to keep his helmet on! He LOVED the ride.

The Longest Ride

 So, after a Winter of sitting in the garage, untouched, I attempted to take the 820 out for a spin only to realize that it wouldn't shift right, the back wheel wouldn't turn and the chain was off. This is the only bike that I have set up for general purpose duty and child carrying. With the trout stocked and stripers running as well as work all my other hobbies clamoring for my time, the bike never got fixed. Finally, this last week, I took a wrench and some chain lube to the trusty 820 and got her in running shape again. It just so happens that this is the kick off for The Tour , so of course all I want to ride is the road bike! The baby seat is attached to the 820 though so it was that that I took out, with baby, on Friday evening. The Boy loved it.

It was his first time in the seat this year, and the second ever I think. We had, and still have, a little trailer for him last year. I love pulling that thing along and he loves riding in it. However, despite "knowing" better, I "feel" that it is a little wide for dragging behind me on city streets and wanted to try the baby seat this year. To make a long story short, the Boy loves that seat. I had to fight with him to get him off the bike at the end of the ride! And I was exhausted by then too! In those few miles it was clear to me that i have NOT been cycling enough this year. So we went out again today. Only this time I thought that I'd have my 11 year old peddling along as well.

We went over to the Eastern Marsh Trail  in Salisbury and set off. I could tell right away that her seat was too low, and I had to pump her tires up from nearly flat but she took off like a bat out of hell! After going up and back, she was exhausted and even gave me the "I'm going to die" speech. She made it though! About three miles: the longest bike ride she's even been on. I am quite proud of her for it. I think she did well and am anxious to see how she hangs now that her seat is adjusted better. I hope she lets me take her on another ride tomorrow! The Boy, on the other hand was not peddling, so he had quite the nice time, other than when we were stopped for some thing or other. He got a little antsy then and was eager to be back underway. I am pleasantly surprised at how well he transitioned from trailer to seat and that Trek 820 is the BEST $60 that I ever spent (other than my sixty dollar P-Bass). It was a great family cycle outing and I can not wait to do it again!

The Tribe Has Spoken!

What? What "Tribe"? The tribe of teenagers in Haverhill.

I feel that there is no group of people more oriented to being outdoors that the average gang of Highschoolers. Wherever they are located they will tend to find an out of the way location in the woods or in the fields, where they can "party". In this case, they have found the Crystal Spring Conservation Area here in Haverhill. I came across this lean-to and this mess when I was out exploring and hiking the other day. It was quite a little camp site that I found out here. What is funny is that this is clearly visible from the homes on the other side of the lake, especially at night when the fire is lit. This a big space that is occupied by a lot of kids. It is pretty far into the woods though, about a half mile, maybe a little less. It's only half the story though. I came across a half dozen more little camp-fire sites in this tinny little preserve that is supposed to be all conservation land (this is the city's drinking water supply!). These woods must be FULL of teenagers on a Friday or Saturday night!








This thing was disturbing though. This was construction. It was right on the main trail and right off the roadway. You can see the rode from here and this is huge. What you can not make out so well in the pictures is the face that this thing appears to be occupied! There are two bags of cloths in there and some other junk. There is some one living in this thing, on conservation land, near where Children Play (ok, ok, teenagers drink and fuck, but close enough for this discussion) and it is within 100 feet and in FULL VIEW of the road. Sorry. This is disturbing.

Well, what can be done about it. I suppose that I could "tell the Police". Sadly, I do not have the greatest respect for the greatest proportion of the cops in this town. To be fair, there are sections of this town that keep them busy. Very busy. I think that that has degraded their "detecting" skills and their "rational thought" skills a little. Bad guys are easy to find, identify and round up. Evan having said that, I don not think that there is ANY shadow of a doubt that the local constabulary knows this place exists. Heck, I am sure that this place was where they hung out when they were kids! But they aren't any more. Regular citizens should be allowed to come here and enjoy this land without having to view the eyesore of the camp or be in fear of whoever created that Hobo House. This is the water that we drink for crying out loud and while I have not met too many 16 year olds who's primary concern is Water Quality, it should be important to a grown, police man who's wife and children drink this water. Honestly, other than that I don't know what to do. Reporting it to the Trails Commission or whoever will get the structures removed (probably) and the area cleaned up so that the kids have a nice clean party site to return to! This should be a beautiful, secluded spot to walk the dog, hike or bring my children to enjoy. Sadly, it is a blight and an eye-sore and potentially, a dangerous place to be. Yea. I love Haverhill!

Essex County Greenway?

No way! My own little through-hike, right in my back yard! I have been going into the Georgetown-Rowley state Forest for years, mostly on Dirtbikes. It was only yesterday, however, that I realized that the GRSF abuts The Hood Pond section of the Willodale State Forest which leads into the Pine Swamp Area and then into the Bradley Palmer State Park! I'm not sure where it leads from there! (I can't get the state's mapping program to work smoothly on the computer).

AT!!!!!

Ok, sort of. About 2.6 miles of it. And it almost killed me! We went up to Crawford Notch. The idea was to hike Ethan Pond Trail and stay at the shelter there. We got a very late start. Due to that, and my VERY poor conditioning, we were forced to turn back and camp at a state camp site for the night. It was actually quite pleasant. The next day we hit the trail again. Wow. I guess I was more rested up or something since I was physically able to get up the initial ascent but that was only half of it! The last .8 miles of it was all snowed in. Fortuneately, most of the snow had melted. Un-fortuneately, the only part of the trail was a 4 inch wide ridge of packed snow running along the middle of the trail. Fall off, or through, the ridge and you sunk knee deep in the snow and landed in an ankle deep puddle of cold, muddy, icy water. Yech. It took us over three hours to get to the camp site. Thank God that we didn't attempt that last night. We never would have made it! It took us two hours to get back and that was all down hill!! 5 and a half hours to go 5.2 miles. Slow going I guess!

I scoffed at the notion that a 900 foot hill could be called a mountain. Of course, my only basis of comparison was the views from the tops of ski runs and photos of panoramic vistas from the Rockies, and other, more exotic ranges. I had never actually hiked or climbed up any mountain, anywhere, before.

My wife and I are geocachers. OK. Done snickering? Fine. Having said that, our take on the activity of geocaching is “an excuse to go hiking” and we tend to go after caches that are farther afield instead of the easiest to grab. After having survived several relatively pampered camping trips out of the trunks of cars and off of the back of the motorcycle, we decided that this year we would try to combine our interest in “Hiking” and “camping” and try “backpacking”. So we did the first and BEST thing that can be done when undertaking a new hobby, sport or activity: we bought gear!

There are two realities of this situation. The first is that my wife is in much better shape than I am as a baseline. The other, incongruously, is that I will be expected carry most of the communal gear. So I have been buying the pack(s) that I will need and trying to do progressively longer and more difficult hikes. Last week I did 5 miles over a 400 foot elevation, out and back. This week I wanted to try out the big 80l Habitat and I determined that the best place to do that would be the 900 foot South Pawtuckaway Mountain. The pack weighted 35 pounds. I got a friend to go along who is much more outdoorsy than I am and has often hiked the White Mountains in the past. The rout would take us over 6 miles in sunny, 50 degree weather.

I had my kit in my backpack (tent, bag, stove, food and pad). I wore my LL Bean hiking boots, a fairly thick poly-pro long-sleeve shirt under a cotton t-shirt under a thin wool commando sweater under a nylon half-zip windbreaker. I was loaded, layered and raring to go. The first sign that things were not going to go quite the way I thought was when we got to the park headquarters and there was no one to register with. There were lots of little white envelopes and an Iron Ranger. There was no ATM and there was no money in our pockets. Well, almost none. I had seventy eight cents and my hiking partner had a crinkled dollar bill. It went into the envelope and into the box. Yes, Dear Ranger Smith, I.O.U. six bucks, twenty. I SWEAR that I’ll make it up to you.

The trip started off easily enough with a paved descent and a gentle up-hill along a dirt fire road. There were a couple of blow-downs across the path and some icy, snowy and muddy sections but overall the going was easy. We swung right onto South Ridge Trail and things got a little more interesting. The ice was slicker and less snowy. The mud a little thicker and the mud puddles longer. There was running water cutting across the trail and even running along the trail. Of course this naturally meant that there was a nice little waterfall along the trail too. Still on the same trail, it suddenly switched back and then the climb began!

Up, up, up we went. The slick rocks were treacherous and the angle difficult to negotiate. The weight of my fat rolls counterbalanced the weight of the pack somewhat, but not in a way that was natural to me or that I was at all used to. Sadly, as steep as the grade was, it never got to the point that I could employ my hands to help me make it up. I slipped less than I feared and ached more than I had expected. I quickly re-evaluated weather or not this “hill” deserved to be called a “mountain”. As far as I was concerned it did! I uttered a quiet apology to South Pawtuckaway Mountain and carried on to the top. Once there I was richly rewarded. The views were amazing if slightly obstructed by the trees that so inconveiniently grew on the summit. This problem was quickly solved by climbing to the observation platform of the fire tower atop the mountain. The ascent and descent up and down those stairs was more un-nerving than any portion of the actual trail had been! We rested up and prepared to retrace our steps for the descent.

It went well. We were both tired. It was not surprising in my case but I really did expect much more from my hiking companion, after all he is all ‘outdoorsy” and stuff. It actually made me feel better about myself that after a while he was the one calling for rest stops and not me! Of course, all this self congratulations was to come to an end on one of those stops. As we sat huffing and puffing and he was, unknown to me, polishing off the last of the one 20oz bottle of water that we had taken with us, a fellow hiker happened along. Fit and trim and slightly scruffy he wore a flannel shirt, carried trecking poles and his rather large day pack hung at a casual level down about the middle of his back. We chatted briefly about what a nice day it was and the trail conditions. He told us that it was not so muddy yet because the school children on field trips had not started to turn up for the season yet. School children! Really? I was as proud of myself as I could have been right up until that moment. In those few words the Sense Of Accomplishment that I had worked so hard for during the last four hours fled like a cockroach in a suddenly lighted room. Looking back on it, it truly was a big deal for me. It was a challenge beyond any that I had yet set for myself. I laid out a difficult goal, achieved it and was rewarded with a view seen by few other middle-aged, out of shape, non-hiking adult males but joyfully shared with hoards of school children who I hope enjoy that view so much that it inspires them to never “let themselves go” like I have. Climb-on little buddies!

Plastic Tide is in!

One more reason to scorn our neighbors in the Land Of Cheep Cigarrettes. Their toxic fucking waste. It seems that the Town Of Hookset misplaced thousands of plastic disks contaminated with bacteria including e-coli from their sewarage treatment plant. They have washed up on the banks of the Merrimack down in the Newburyport area. I saw Clean Harbors crews picking these things up in Cashman Park and at the Joppa Park boat ramp. Of course there was SO much other crap on the shore there that they were NOT picking up, I tend to wonder why they are bothering.

In other news, we fitted the baby backpack up for The Bruce this season. Very little change in the straps that hols him in. More change was noted in the waist strap that goes around ME however.

Found a Geocache in Newburyport in a wonderful little park that I never knew was there!

Reactive

Yes. I am reactivating this blog as I enjoy so much more outdoor activity than simply biking, although I have high hopes for my cycling this season. I want to write about my hiking, fishing and grocaaching and paddling as well as my motorcycle activities. Again and as always, this Blog is a journal for myself. I hope that if others stumble uppon it they might fins it interesting or even informative.

So without further ado, the Grand Relaunch of the Outdoor Me is in effect!