Unsettled Bones

 

With the gray doldrums of winter and a pandemic weighing squarely upon me, this week I started taking my lunch outside. By the time the sub zero weekend rolled around and knowing that we were in for a bit of weather on Martin Luther King Jr's Birthday, I was beginning to feel panicked that I would never see the open trail again! Ok, so that may have been a momentary loss of my senses. Call it cabin fever, call it whatever you want, Wayne was on the receiving end of it. 

A bit of a warning is in order here for those who aren't quite as fascinated by bones as I am. There are pictures of bones in this blog, not Wayne's mind you, but interesting none the less.

Wayne had barely gotten the milk on his cereal when I asked him where we were hiking today. His enthusiasm was palatable in his remark about something of it still being in the single digits. 

"Do you want to drive over to see if we can find the trail from the road?" Wayne asked after agreeing to a scouting expedition. We had both gotten into the Jeep when it dawned on us that we were headed towards another error in judgment. "Do you want to get on our gear in case we decide to start hiking?" I looked down at my day hikers and knowingly agreed. The thing about Wayne, is that I can wait forever for him only to have him in the end ready before I am. 

The plan was to hike the VAST secondary orange trail between green trail marker six and Newton road. We had previously hiked the green trail from the Vernon Rec to the Dam but had skipped this extension on that hike. 

This trail skirts state land shown near the top of the below image. Note "Blodgett" on both maps for refence. The areas shaded in blue are state lands. We decided to access the trail from Mary Drive off of 142 and parked at the now closed School House Grocery. 

Don and his crew, Vernon Trail Breakers Snowmobile Club  maintain these trails. Private land owners generously allow these trails to cross their land. 

State lands posted in yellow, are to the left of the trail as we enter from Mary Drive.

As we neared the tracks, we had state land diamonds on our immediate left, multiple newly posted no trespassing signs to our right, with green trail markers and RR signs directly ahead. This is a major intersection for a town of our size.

And by the looks of things, traffic has been heavy this winter. 

We've only taken one animal tracks class with Bonnyvale and this hike challenged every bit of our novice knowledge. Above are turkey tracks. Below are feline, K-9 and deer. There were more  than these to investigate, but I wanted to try and show all three kinds together.

Across the tracks and straight across the field is the green trail. The orange trail is to the left. Never ones to be satisfied with the obvious, we decided to walk the circumference of the field. 

When attempting to identify tracks, distance between prints and stride patterns are as important as the individual print. Here I use my glove to show relative size. These tracks show four toes with retracted claws. I asked Helen how to tell the difference between these cat prints and the weasel family. Helen said that mustelids have five toes.

I took another unexpected trip to the ground. As I rested in the prone position trying to collect myself, Wayne thinking that I had simply failed to sufficiently lift my feet while walking, asked me if I had fallen over my own feet again. I rolled over and looked in disbelief at a clump of grass that had apparently led to my undoing. 

Cut bone and deer hide. We couldn't find the skull or legs.

Rodents had gnawed at the ribs. Ferns and grasses had grown up through them. This find was worth the headache I suffered for the rest of the day from my fall.

On the bank of the Island Meadow Brook, we found a hole.

The brook was frozen enough for us to walk on. We weren't the first to walk on the ice.

With freezing and thawing, it's difficult to know the initial shape and size of a track.

The bend is a particularly beautiful area

We decided to check out the green trail bridge over the Island Meadow Brook as Don had shown me pictures of it being flooded. Don thinks that the issue is an undersized culvert. I wondered if the issue was beaver; but the only signs of beaver we found were two felled tree stumps that weren't fresh. 

From here we backtracked to the orange trail.

The light being let into this area is due to recent logging adjacent to the trail.

Wayne finally located an orange blaze.

Blodgett's field

We spent some time alternating through fields and woods

Wayne walks next to a posted area that has recently been logged.

At the edge of a Dunklee's field, we found seed filled deer tracks

The last leg of the orange trail crosses this field.

However, twenty feet from where we entered the field, Wayne noticed a sign that ended our hike short of Newton road.

Wayne checked his app to see if we had somehow missed the trail, but with no trespassing signs posted to the right of us and this sign to the left, we turned back.

Our shortened hike wasn't a total loss however, we stopped to check out a flooded area on the way back and found these cool tracks. After bugging Helen and Kirk all morning for identifications, they pointed out that most of my exciting track sightings on this hike were domestic dog and cat. I won't let that minor detail ruin my fun. -Norma Manning

Random & Rough Spring Trails With Surprises Along the Way

 Donald pulled his truck over and rolled down his window. He wanted to talk about the trails, "You know we called to invite you to the falls?" Yes I had gotten the call but Wayne and I were already on a hike when they left the message. I asked Donald about another trail that Wayne and I were considering between the town forest and Franklin Rd. There were also two ponds that we found on Google Earth but just one showed up on the vast trail map. After an extended chat waving neighbors around us, we left the conversation with Donald telling me about the ways to get to the pond and my saying that it would have to wait until the the spring mud was done with.

Of course as soon as I walked in the door I had Wayne trying to find a way in. We had tried without success once before; but as luck would have it, the temperatures were about to drop like a rock and I assumed that would firm up the mud. So armed with Donald's conversation and a trail map, Wayne and I tried to pick up the trail by driving up to Fairman Rd. Seeing that the area where the trail crossed was posted with no trespassing signs and no place to park, we headed to Sak Rd. There was a field to be crossed next to a house but it too was posted. Our next stop was Tyler Hill Rd at Lillis Pasture Rd and you guessed it, that too was posted. We were beginning to think that we would have to hike in from the town forest after all. 

Just so you know upfront, this is a super long post covering four and a half hours of hiking. But I hope that you will agree that along the way there are some great surprises! 

We decided to park at the town hall and take the trail across 142 and the train tracks. The road crossing the tracks is posted, but the vast diamond is also clearly visible.

Miller Farm is to our right and the crushed stone operation is to our left.

I was excited to see that there is a wildlife refuge on the farm. We saw a flock of Canada Geese there.

Terracing with a brook below reminds us of the glacier and lake that sculpted the land in Vernon

With snow flurries in the forecast, clouds were rolling in over the CT River and Miller Farm

Finding ice on the trail, we immediately regretted leaving our trekking poles and crampons in the car. Also, notice that Wayne packed water and first aid supplies for this hike. 

Once past the open trail, we found ourselves walking up what reminded me of a playground shoot.

I was surprised by how large the gravel mining operation is given it's relatively small road frontage footprint on 142.  Most of the pit isn't visible from the trail. After the hike, I explored this area using the 3-D option on Google Earth. 

The bank of the shoot is sand. It's interesting how varied the soil is in this area of Vernon

At the end of the shoot we found ourselves in mixed soft and hardwood trees

Without sled tracks to guide us, we kept our eyes out for the vast trail diamonds. It's important to note that these markers are placed for the much faster riders and can seem too spread out for hikers. Here we see directions to a logging lot. Experience tells us that the trail could get rough with logging happening.

 The cycle of freezing and thawing created air pockets on the logging road which did not hold our weight. It's important that when the tail gets rough that you do your best to not walk to the side of it. Hiking around rough areas creates erosion and widens the trail. This includes wet muddy spring trails. Many trails are closed in the spring to prevent damage to them and to protect wildlife.

Finally we found what we were looking for.

Everything pointed in this direction but we came upon posted land. We had to backtrack to the intersection and try the trail on the right instead.

Further up the trail on the right we located another diamond that was the same color that we had followed to the posted land. A good Samaritan attempted to clarify where we were headed.

Another decision to be made

The trail to the right lead to a clearing above the Miller Farm pastures

Miller Farm has cleared this land

A clear view of our retired nuclear power plant - Vermont Yankee

The soil is rocky in this new clearing

Another backtrack had us considering taking a well worn wildlife path.

The third trail is the charm!

We began seeing brooks and wet  trails 

At this juncture we were out of trail options, so when the trail became blocked, we continued on

I want to mention that there were beautiful cliffs on the other side of the trail, but none of my pictures showed them well enough to post. I thought that these vines were also interesting.

We began hearing an ATV but never spotted it. Wayne said we were headed towards Lillis Pasture

Lilis Pasture to the left, Tyler Hill to the right, 142 from where we came. We headed to Lilis.

Of course it was uphill

Moose scat

Wayne couldn't believe that I picked up poop, but how else were you to see how big it was?

There is a lot of water up here

A sure harbinger of spring, the snow fleas are out

When the diamonds are on the ground, take your best guess

I think that on clearer days the view from this hill would be beautiful. For now I settled for more wetlands.

Wayne letting me know approximately where we are

Finding Laurel provided better orientation for me

Friendly face 

 

It had started to snow and we weren't entirely certain that we were on the right trail, so you will understand that I felt like I had found the golden Easter egg when I found this diamond!

Wayne pointed to the gate post and then headed towards that side of the trail. I should have paid closer attention to the reason he did so.

When I took the course Living in a Vigorous Environment at Keene State, we were told that when your shoes get wet, keep walking to dry them out. What choice did I have?

More trees across the trail

Someone was trying to tell us that we weren't getting out of this in one piece. 

Finally we reached the green trail! We could hear the interstate along this trail.

Given that this trail runs north and south we needed to decide to which direction once again. Wayne decided to go south. Who was I to argue?

Having hiked most of the way with too little information, we suddenly found ourselves on the information highway!

We had just come from 1 to the intersection. Wayne informed me that we were about halfway through our hike if we took the loop 1-A back to the farm. On this map there was only one big pond in the area, and it looked like we were going to miss it. Looking at the map as I write, I can see the small triangle on the orange trail above Miller Farm, where we back tracked to twice before heading towards Franklin Road and Lillis Pasture.

 

The 1-A trail meets up with Cold Brook. This side of the trail had been recently traveled on by logging trucks and so the roads were wet, rutted and muddy. The snow began falling more steadily.

Two miles (?) of hiking in truck ruts seemed more than enough for one day. But I believe this is what the loggers were after.

Where there is mud and flowing brooks there is bound to be beaver, and where there are beaver there are beaver ponds and I was so excited to finally find it!

This is the pond seen on Google Earth but not on the Junction map. It is rectangle in shape with two dams and a third under construction. 

An impressive dam network. This is the largest I've seen in southern VT.  This is dam #1

Dam #2

Hemlock branches underwater between dams two and three. Branches and saplings are stuck in the mud and stored for another meal.

This is  dam #3 which is under construction (lower right corner). In spite of the beaver's efforts, the Cold Brook continued east. 

We enjoyed the company of the swollen Cold Brook as we hiked along the trail. As for the markers above? At this juncture, what's another lucky guess?

Imagine our dismay when we exited this part of the trail by walking right past the posted signs that had caused our first backtrack at the start of our hike. We wondered it it was a logger who had posted his lot and that this section of 1-A was in fact still open for snowmobiles and hikers? Clearly our hike to the pond would have been much quicker had we continued on our way.

I hope you enjoyed our hike. I think that our next adventure will take us the distance between the town forest and Franklin Rd...but we never know!