Bay Circuit Trail Ipswich Branch Part 3. Bradley Palmer State Park.

Bradley Palmer State Park is a centerpiece of several large parcels left by a parent of the modern multinational corporation, Bradley F. Palmer. 

It meets the Ipswich Branch of the Bay Circuit Trail at a junction with Highland Road where it brings the trail north from the Pingree Woodlands.

Bay Circuit Trail Ipswich Branch Part 2. The Pingree Woodlands.

Upon passing south from Appleton Grass Rides, the Ipswich Branch of the Bay Circuit Trail passes through a property of the Harvard Forestry School.

It meets the Pingree Woodland at a small pond equipped with a device called a beaver deceiver designed to discourage dam making.

Bay Circuit Trail: Ipswich Branch Part 1. Appleton Farms and Grass Rides.

The Ipswich Branch of the Bay Circuit Trail currently begins at the main entrance of Appleton Farms in Ipswich. It aims to ultimately begin at Crane Beach and that segment is in various stages of completion.

It initially passes through the working farm element with crop fields giving way to pastures.

Bay Circuit Trail : Sharon MA Beaver Brook.

Beaver Brook carries the Bay Circuit Trail south of Moose Hill and the trail meanders wonderfully through it.

It passes  along the Boston to New York passenger rail corridor offering glimpses of Amtrak and commuter rail.

Bay Circuit Trail Sherborn MA Rocky Narrows.

Rocky Narrows is a venerable and stunning bit of the Bay Circuit where the Charles River is squeezed by stone.  

If you only had a few parts of the Bay Circuit Trail to visit, this deserves to be high on the list.

Andover Trail Annals: Shawsheen River Greenway.

The Shawsheen River Greenway is an Andover Village Improvement Society trail along the river from Ballardvale to Andover Center.

Heading north from Ballardvale, it initially passes through the Vale Reservation.

Bay Circuit Trail: Callahan State Park.

Callahan State Park is like Borderlands in that it occupies two towns, Framingham and Marlborough.

The Bay Circuit Trail meets it coming in from the north after passing through the Sudbury Valley Trustees parcel called the Welch Reservation.

Bay Circuit Trail: Ipswich MA Prospect Hill to Linebrook Woods.

The enthusiasm Ipswich evinces for the Bay Circuit Trail and its own extensive trail system is noticeable as soon as you cross the border in the north.

It is one of the more exciting aspects of Essex County, a convergence of astute organizations collaborating at adding to the value of a region covering everything from heritage facets to critical ecology research in the Great Marsh.

Bay Circuit Trail Medfield MA Noon Hill.

I spent a good part of autumn climbing the local Bay Circuit hills like a form of midget peak bagging. And, just as when I used to climb 3000 plus foot things up north, I'm indifferent to such practices  I haul my carcass up a mountain for a view.

That is what Noon Hill has. It is a good one. 

Bay Circuit Trail Medfield MA The Shattuck Reservation.

The Shattuck Reservation lies along the Charles River in Medfield and is part of a suite of outstanding parcels owned by the Trustees of Reservations to protect the upper river.

It's the lowland counterpart to Noon Hill and was the beneficiary of a brand new Bay Circuit Trail reroute this summer.

Bay Circuit Trail Lincoln MA. Walden Woods to Farrar Pond.

The Bay Circuit Trail enters Lincoln from the north in Walden Woods and exits via Wayland.

The essential quality and character of this town would probably be recognizable to its erstwhile roamer, Thoreau, today, beyond a few baffling new things.

Bay Circuit Trail : Southborough MA The Sudbury Reservoir.

The Sudbury Reservoir has an interesting situation. It was a system made in the 1870s to quench Bostons thirst and wash it after earlier attempts wouldn't scale.

And when that failed, it was necessary to drown several towns in the center of the state to make the Quabbin, but I digress.

Bay Circuit Trail Andover MA Conservation Commission Woodland.

The third parcel one passes through between the Harold Parker State Forest and the Ward Reservation is one of those quasi nameless places that often turn out to be among the best places along the trail.

According to the Holy Writ, (also known as the trail directions), this parcel is simply the Andover Conservation Commission Woodland. 

Bay Circuit Trail : Andover MA Hammond and Mary French Reservations.

The Hammond Reservation lies across the Salem Street from the Skug River Reservation which shares a parking lot.

It also shares ownership being a property of the Andover Village Improvement Society. And it is the next segment of the Bay Circuit Trail in this corner of Andover.

Bay Circuit Trail: Andover MA Skug River Reservation..

There are some Bay Circuit communities that serve as activity hubs in their particular corner of the system. They are fully engaged in robust open space enhancement work and act as best practices benchmark locations.

And, of these, Andover is a place to revisit again and again. And of its places, the Skug River Reservation is particularly rewarding with a compelling convergence of history and nature.

Bay Circuit Trail: Walpole MA The Wonder That is Mine Brook.

While the Bay Circuit Trail has many well defined places under the jurisdiction of the best open space advocates in the region, it also has these fascinating, nearly nameless places where even figuring out the jurisdiction takes a bit of digging.

                                          
The Mine Brook section would be one of these. It is essentially a wetland protection buffer for the Walpole water supply. A run of eskers, almost in a skein, makes a dogleg with a short southerly bit bending to a longer easterly one. The trail begins its easterly run to Duxbury in a stepwise fashion.

It is also a headwater of the Neponset River watershed.

Bay Circuit Trail: Rowley MA The Rural Rowley Role.

Rowley has a smaller population than its counterparts to the north and south and it has evinced a bit less enthusiasm for the Bay Circuit Trail than might be hoped.

When I visited on a crisp and bright September day on the heels of a newborn Autumn, I was intercepted by a stern but gracious town law officer, who evidently got a call from some other inhabitant about the suspicions spun of me wandering with a camera. 

I waved my print out Bay Circuit crap map kit at him and he scoffed... "Bay Circuit... never heard of it..." while probably weighing my hazard value on whatever scale they use. It was pretty funny considering I was standing on it.

Bay Circuit Trail: Newbury MA The Road to Rowley

Many great basic day hikes for the Bay Circuit Trail are adapted to commuter rail and the southward course of the trail at Joppa Flats works well with the locations of the Newburyport and Rowley stations.

The trail soon meets the Spencer Peirce Little farmhouse, one of the Commonwealth's oldest structures and a fairly unique one in its design.

Bay Circuit Trail: At the Plum Island Beginning, Newbury MA.

The Plum Island trail head in the North at Newbury, Massachusetts is a perfect contrast to its counterpart in Duxbury down South.

The latter is a quiet and sheltered salt marsh cove while Plum Island is one of the more exposed and pounded stretches of strand along the whole Commonwealth coast.

Bay Circuit Trail: Terra Incognita Part 4. Pembroke MA.

Boardwalk Bridge at J. J. Shepherd Forest Pembroke MA.

The Bay Circuit Trail segment through Pembroke offers a transition back and forth between a moraine  area and its outwash plain. 

It leaves Hanson at the J.J. Shepherd Memorial Forest along the basin forming Indian Head Pond and runs thence to outwash shoals of a cranberry bog at Tubbs Meadow.