Hike #1387: 1/15-1/18/21 Plainville to Moose Hill MA with Jillane Becker
This next one was another long trip for Jillane and I.
I had the time off from work due to the pandemic crap, so we figured we'd just take more of these trips, and stick them together with benefit time if I needed to.
She wanted to try to stay in shape through her pregnancy, and so hiking a lot seemed like a good idea. She ended up coving a whole lot of miles while pregnant.
We were originally thinking about going out to West Virginia where we'd left off after our final trip out of PA, but then the weather was not cooperating out there.
I had several ideas of things to do, and one of the big ones on my list was to continue walking toward Boston, starting where we'd left off on the Warner Trail in Massachusetts.
The Warner Trail is a very old trail, dating back to 1947 when it used to stretch from Diamond Hill Rhode Island to the Blue Hills Reservation near Boston.
Now, the trail just terminates at a random spot outside of Canton.I had gone over the maps of it, and found a way that we could extend to the far end of the Warner Trail, close to where it used to go, with minimal road walking.
I didn't know how far we would make it on this one, and I honestly didn't really care all that much. This, to me, was all about seeing and experiencing things.
Warner Trail is exactly the crazy kind of trail I love, that just goes through whatever random piece of property between points.
If it wasn't weird enough as it is, it was blazed with these tiny pieces of plastic or metal. Little circles that are hard to see and just sort of grow out of the trees.
We had started at the southwest end of the Warner Trail at Diamond Hill RI and hiked it as far as a point called Wampum Corners in Massachusetts.
This time, I wanted to continue on the Warner Trail from where we left off, but there was no parking there we could use for several days. I needed to find a place to stay and somehow for this to work out.
I reached out to the Comfort Inn and Suites Plainville-Foxboro and reserved a room for the night, and got permission to leave the car there for several days while we hiked north. This way, we didn't have to make it anywhere in particular.
We'd just get done when we got done and that was that.
To get to Wampum Corner, we'd have to walk a little distance on other trails and such, but I found some stuff that I wanted to see anyway. After all, it was about the journey.
I concocted a route of park land, trails, utility lines, and a possible future rail trail that connects in with the Warner Trail.
DAY 1
From the hotel, we had to walk down Rt 1, the Boston-Providence Highway for just a bit. There was a pretty lake on the right side, Turnpike Pond.
We headed to the end of it, and then Plainville Conservation Area owns lands to the south, to the right. There was an old chimney remnant right off the road, maybe an old roadside rest from the past.
An old concrete road led along the back of the lake into the woods there, then disappeared. We stayed on a sort of informal footpath to a somewhat new construction area, wide open. Someone had made a design in stones at the steep part that looks almost like an attempt at a peace sign, or otherwise maybe some sort of weird satanic thing.
We skirted around the outside of the clearing, passed some stacked rocks, and entered woods. We very soon came upon a woods road. This was part of the trail system of Plainville Township.
We found our way to the trail that headed to the west and I watched my GPS closely. We crossed the Old Mill Brook on a bridge, and the water flowed almost across the thing.
The root systems upstream almost made a dam on it. We then came upon a camping area just off on another trail to the right. We took a little side trip to check it out.
There was a stone wall thing, fire ring, and nice shelter. If we needed a place to camp, this would have been great, but we didn't at this point.
The main trail we were on skirted some sports field and came out to Everett Skinner Road. We crossed the road and followed another trail parallel with it just into the woods to the west. We followed this to Woods Road Trail, which went west from another access point on Everett Skinner Road.
We followed this trail for a little bit, and I tried to follow my GPS to continue on the quickest route to a power line to the southwest.
We ended up on a much narrower foot path, and then came out to the power line.
We turned right on the line, which was quite warm and pleasant. I thought how strange it felt that we were hiking in New England in January, and I was hiking in shorts and a tee shirt because it was so warm.
The power line had a path down the middle of it, but I took one further to the right to get a better view of the area around us. We crossed Berry Street on the way northwest.
Pretty soon, we were descending toward South Street, Rt 1A. When we got there, we crossed directly, and then went around the back of a sort of substation, crossed a wooden plank bridge, and then reached an old railroad grade.
This was a branch of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad abandoned since the 1970s.
Rail Trail extraordinaire Craig Della Penna told me that the property is owned by British National Grid company, and there is a proposal to turn it into a rail trail called the Metacomet Greenway.
Of course, the Metacomet Ridge is over in Connecticut, as is the Metacomet hiking trail, but the tribe of the same name extended well into Massachusetts, and I suppose the type of rock formations may as well.
We turned right here and started walking the railroad bed to the north. I popped open a Weyerbacher and sipped it as we walked pleasantly along the right of way.
Soon, we crossed Outlet Blvd, from the Wrentham Outlets, and this connected us to where we had been on the previous Massachusetts trip. This is the point where the Warner Trail joins the railroad bed to the north, and we had done this bit before.
For the next mile or so, we'd already been here, but the railroad bed was pleasant to walk.
We followed it soon beneath Interstate 495, and then it wasn't long before we reached West Street at Wampum Corners.
The last time, we ate at Commonwealth Barbecue across the intersection here, but this time we would continue on Warner Trail, which turned right on South Street.
Jillane went to take a break at a picnic bench out in back of the barbecue place, so I went into Wampum Corner Wine and Liquors to have a look around for something good.
I was delighted to find a big celebratory of Sierra Nevada Trip in the Woods Cacao Coconut Narwhal, which is a bourbon barrel aged strong brew that I absolutely love.
I also went across the intersection to a Cumberland Farms to get us some drinks and snacks for the rest of the day.
The chimney may date back to 1694 although that has not been substantiated.
The home is now managed by Wrentham Historical Commission.
I was getting a little worried based on a little of what we saw on the previous section we did, where we had to climb up a pretty steep hill west of the Wrentham Outlets, that this might be a somewhat tough trail, but most of this was actually pretty easy.
The woods were huge. We often had no view of any other homes, but the sound of highway was never very far away. We didn't see as many ATV riders as we could hear through the property either, so I was never felt so bothered by them either. Apparently ATVs are permitted to use these lands as well, which makes it quite different from NJ.
We continued down the road from here to the south for a bit.
The trail turned off to the left into the woods up ahead. It passed through Wrentham State Forest, which was overrun with ATVs. That is basically what is keeping all of this trail open.
The woods were huge. We often had no view of any other homes, but the sound of highway was never very far away. We didn't see as many ATV riders as we could hear through the property either, so I was never felt so bothered by them either. Apparently ATVs are permitted to use these lands as well, which makes it quite different from NJ.
We passed below the big Wampum Rock, which was just an enormous single piece rock, and passed through some seriously wet lands with giant puddles.
The map of what we did is available here: http://warnertrail.org/Warner2.pdf
The trail was sometimes hard to catch when it comes to its turns. The tiny plastic or metal blazes are so discreet that it takes some getting used to finding them. Sometimes, they'd grown out of the trees or had been ripped out. Others are no longer white, and metal ones are just a silver look since the paint is off.
It got a little weird as we headed north out of Wrentham State Forest and entered private land on an abandoned old road. It went right in back of a couple of houses, and then came out on the driveway of another. It then cut at an angle across another access driveway where the landowner has wood piles and a trailer sitting. We then came out to Beach Street and turned left.
Then, the trail turns abruptly right onto another driveway into Trout Pond Conservation Area.
We passed a small pond, and the trail, on the road, became a bit more beat up as we descended a bit.
We then came to Trout Pond itself, an attractive pond lined with White Pines. The trail skirted the left side of it on the height of some land, and the made our way around to the little stone spillway of the pond.
From here, the trail, still on a pine needle covered woods road, started to gradually ascend Kruckup Hill.
When we reached the height of the land, we arrived on an abandoned ski slope.
This was once the slopes of the Sweatt Hill Recreation Area. It was an active ski slope from the 1960s through the 1980s.
This was once the slopes of the Sweatt Hill Recreation Area. It was an active ski slope from the 1960s through the 1980s.
I walked to the left a bit and took in the great view from the top of Kruckup Hill to the north, and checked out an old ski slope shed and an old fireplace. It was really a pretty nice view.
Some of the ski lift poles and cable system pulleys were still in place through this area.
I was surprised to see that the Warner Trail went pretty much straight down one of the old ski slopes, which was quite steep. We had to really take our time on it, but we were okay. It was getting dark, so getting done with this before it got too bad was important. I was just glad that we weren't going up it the other way.
Once we were down from the ski slope, the trail turned hard right, and was then a pretty wide old woods road that was overall easy walking.
The trail came out to an access road that went to the right to some sort of township building I guess for old folks, and it continued straight across through a swath of woods parallel with Taunton Street, then came out to Taunton Street by one of the road access.
We walked the street south just a bit, and then on the left side, I think right after the 452 mail box, the trail just went right into a narrow swath of Wrentham State Forest woods, narrowly between two homes. It had white paint blazes at least, which was better than anything we'd come across before.
It was dark at this point, and it seemed like a miracle that we even spotted this turn.
We headed up into the woods on this rocky foot path, with a bit of an ascent, and then reached a woods road section kept open by ATVs when we were further into the woods.
This was a rough and confusing spot to get through moving ahead. If the blazes were anything like what we'd had to follow in earlier sections of the trail, there would be no way we would find our way through these woods in the dark.
Although there were some questionable spots, this ended up being really a very pleasant night hike. There were rocks and such in the trail, but none of it was that hard. I was already great with night hiking, so this was nothing. I just pushed ahead and made sure I could see some blazes. There were definitely other trail blazes up there, but the white ones I assumed were the way I needed to go.
When I was at all unsure, I would just check the GPS on my phone, and it still had us going exactly in the direction we needed to be. I was pretty happy about it.
Following the official trail route, we came to where we could see the lights of Interstate 495, and the the development of The Points at Wrentham. This was our goal for the night.
I wanted to get to the Spring Hill Suites in that area for the night, and had already called to make sure we were good. Our room was read for us and we just had to get there. It was great that navigating this wasn't so hard just yet.
There was a side trail that obviously went down closer to the highway, and so we took that, and I took note where we were on the GPS so we could return to the Warner Trail in this area.
The trail took us down and along a little stream behind the development. We pushed along and found a spot of an old road and bridge that went across toward the hotel area.
I recall there was a somewhat low fence we had to go over, and we ended up in the retention pond area. The buildings actually sat up at a higher elevation than this, and from farther away it did not look like we'd have to climb back up to get to them.
We skirted the fence line up along the retention pond, and then headed uphill a bit. We got over the fence, and then passed through Ledgeview Wy which took us up a bit to the hotel.
Jillane was a bit disappointed that this hotel was literally just a bit over 495 from where we stayed the night before, but I thought it was really a great day, and we covered more of the Warner Trail.
The television in the room read "Good Evening Michael, Time to Relax", and it had a wonderful view out the window to the south across the highway. I was really happy to be there. There was even a pool, so we could go in for a dip, but only I did.
DAY 2
I always get up early at these things, but all they had for breakfast at this one was a shitty bag of the crap that almost no one grabs when it comes to hotel breakfasts.
An apple. A breakfast bar. Maybe a little juice container. I think it was one of those fruit nutrition bars this time. Very underwhelming.
We started on our way back down to the retention ponds of the night before. I think we approached this time from the left of all of the buildings. I had looked at it on my own in the morning by taking a walk, and there was a rock outcropping on the one side. We had to circumnavigate all of the obstacles, which would be easier not in the dark.
We got back to the way we'd come in, and Jillane chose to take an off trail route a bit that included finding a little campsite out there with chairs and a table.
We walked a woods road a bit one way along a stream, but it was taking us out of the way from where we needed to be from the day before, so we eventually found our way back onto the trail we had walked in, and then returned to the Warner Trail.
The next section was again mostly old woods roads utilized by ATVs. It was pretty easy to do with only minimal elevation.
We skirted vernal pools and then reached a stream where there was a ruin of an old dam, and a small cascade below it known as Minnehaha Falls. 
The trail climbed up a slope to the right of the former dam pool, descended the other side, and paralleled the Minnehaha Brook and wetlands on puncheons.
We crossed Outlook Rock with a glacial erratic, but there was no view. I suppose when the trail was first put in, there might have been an overlook up there.
The trail was better blazed in this section, and seemed to improve the farther east we got. There were sometimes triangle emblems that read Warner Trail on them, sometimes good standard paint blazes, and other times there were different triangles pointing in the direction of a trail turn.
The trail meandered a lot in this next section and became more foot path. Less ATV traffic, and actually a lot of sections of puncheons were along the way. It was quite nice.
We eventually came to some glacial erratics as we approached a rocky area known as The Pinnacles.
The trail climbed up over some of the open rocks, but with limited views as we reached the highest points. There were some strewn glacial erratics, but nothing particularly spectacular just yet.
The trail descended from the high point, then followed probably an old road in a cleft between sections of ridge, past lichen covered rocks. We shifted from heading north to south again, then south again over a lower section of rock outcrops.
The trail came out to a splendid northeast facing overlook at a good rock outcropping. There was one guy already there, pretty much the first other hiker we'd seen since getting on the Warner Trail.
I chatted with him a bit about some of the area trails and told him about what we were doing.
Our ultimate goal was to walk to Boston. I really wanted to connect to that badly. From this rock outcropping, it was the first time we could actually see Boston on any of these hikes.
It was a beautiful spot, and a great interaction. It was refreshing because the guy wasn't being all weird about virus stuff like so many people are in Massachusetts.
We made our way from here along the trail, downhill toward Madison Street.
This was all like regular hiking; no ATV path, just nicely blazed foot path, well marked in a switchback route until we got to the street.
It was a little weird again from this point.
Directly across was a capped landfill. The trail went directly along the right side of this, which looked just like a grassy field, then entered the woods through natural clefts in rock outcrops and past glacial erratics. It then emerged off the side of a back yard to the cul de sac of Warner Trail Road.
The trail turned right on Thurson Street, then left on Dunn Ave. There were really no good blazes on this. I just had to study the trail map to see where it showed we should be.
We turned right then on Ames Ave, and then left on Davis Street.
While on this road walk stretch, a guy pulled up to us in his car and asked if we were doing the Warner Trail. He seemed really happy to hear that someone else was doing it, and said that he and his friends used to just go and do the whole thing, which is now like thirty miles, in a day. I thought that was so cool that someone else decided to take on that thing. Especially such a young guy. He was definitely younger than me.
We chatted for a bit about how it can be tough to find, but when you know where you're going it's not such a big deal.
At the end of Davis Ave, the trail passed between an opening in a chain link fence and into an oddball wetland.
There were puncheons and such, but the trail got to be a complete slop mess with segments of good puncheons laying askew, having washed into random alignment, and segments of fallen trees that had had boards affixed to them for walkway, but none of it was in good shape. It was a test of balance an posture to get over sloppy but beautiful wetland.
Some segments of older puncheons were covered in a grassy material parallel with the better, newer sections at some points.
We eventually reached some higher ground and a dry, straight foot path led through a handsome stand of White Pines, and emerged on Myrtle Street.
To the left of where we came out, there was an old stone ruin and a tall old chimney. Directly across the street was the pretty Crocker Pond. We took in the scenery here before moving on ahead.
We headed east down Myrtle, then across Boston-Providence Highway. The trail ascended to the right into F. Gilbert Hills State Forest, formerly known as Foxborough State Forest.
We passed through stone rows and climbed gradually over rocks on a trail that was not beaten by ATVs, to the beautiful Sunset Ledge. We reached the spot just as the sun was starting to set as well. It wasn't as impressive as some of the views we had, but it was still pretty nice.
The trail headed downhill off of the back of Sunset Ledge, and then came to an intersection where the Warner Trail as actually acknowledged.
Aside from the occasional triangles with the name on it, there hard hardly been anything to say the Warner Trail even existed, but this was a nice routed sign that read the distances east and west.
East, High Rock was 0.3 mile, Moose Hill was 10.1, and Canton Junction 17.4. Back the way we came, Wrentham State Forest was 2.3, Pinnacle Rock was 2.6, and Diamond Hill Rhode Island was 15.9.
East, High Rock was 0.3 mile, Moose Hill was 10.1, and Canton Junction 17.4. Back the way we came, Wrentham State Forest was 2.3, Pinnacle Rock was 2.6, and Diamond Hill Rhode Island was 15.9.
I walked ahead just a little bit, and reached some impressive stone stairs. They were originally built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1934, and restored by the Student Conservation Association in 2017 and 2018.
The trail turned right at the bottom and continued through pleasant woods. I thought it was pretty well marked, but there were a couple of intersections that were kind of sketchy.
The trail turned right at the bottom and continued through pleasant woods. I thought it was pretty well marked, but there were a couple of intersections that were kind of sketchy.
I moved ahead a bit more, and then stopped to wait for Jillane like I always do. The problem was, she wasn't showing up.
I tried calling her, and she didn't answer. And then again. And again. I got nothing.
I started backtracking, and went quite a ways. I got to the CCC stairs, went up them, past the sign, and still no sign of her. I thought maybe she decided to sit down at Sunset Ledge and didn't move yet. I went all the way back to there and still no sign of her.
She eventually answered a call, and had gone the wrong way on the trail and ended up a ways south.
I directed her to go down the steps and checked in with her again after that.
I continued ahead from this point and went by a large outcrop known as Goat Rock.
I meandered past where peopale were accessing the property to my left, which must have been the High Rock area mentioned on the sign. I didn't note anything too special there, but just a little further ahead was a trail shelter and fire pit. It was getting colder, so we were not going to be camping this time.
I waited briefly at the shelter, but Jillane was still behind. I checked in with her, and she told me to just keep going ahead.
The trail reached an old road once known as Messenger Road. We turned left here, and passed Water Hole #10. It was one of several water holes constructed by the CCC through the state forest. They were intended to be pumping stations to combat future forest fires. They were all pretty much useless as we developed stronger pumping equipment.
It was getting darker as I walked, and crossed a wet area on a puncheon. There was a wooden routed sign that pointed out a turn, and the trail turned onto a berm of Upper Dam Pond. I was glad to have a view of it before it got too dark.
The foot path made its way off of the pond berm and weaved through more woods. It then came down along the south shore of Lakeview Pond. I headed out to Lakeview Road, and then backtracked into the woods to a pleasant rock to sit on and wait for Jillane. 
The lights of the homes on the other side of the lake were eerie and beautiful.
The site is pretty historic; the original dam was created in 1813 by Hervey Pettee who established a thread mill at the site. The factory and dam were destroyed by a Spring freschet in 1831, and it was replaced by a stone mill. Charles Freeman and son operated a wool scouring mill at the site until it too was destroyed by a flood in 1886. Alexander Ross took over mill operations after that, and the Ross family established Lake View Park on the waterfront in 1906. The Norfolk and Bristol Electric Railroad served the site until 1919.
I moved back through the woods a bit more, and eventually saw the light of Jillane's flashlight coming through.
Once she caught up, we headed out to Lakeview Road.
We weren't going to make it any further on the road this night. America's Best Value Inn was only about 1.5 mile away, which was nothing after what we'd already done, so we decided to head there.
A left turn on Lakeview Road led us out to Main Street, Rt 140. I think I didn't realize we could walk Post Road to the left to get through at that moment.
We continued on 140 to head out and under Boston-Providence Highway, and then turned right up the slope parallel with the southbound side of Rt 1 to America's Best Value Inn.
It wasn't terrible, but I think they were going though renovations or something where the pool and such was not open. They also only had crappy bag breakfasts and such.
DAY 3
When we got up and got moving, I decided we would take a different way back to the Warner Trail than we had come, and it would be much more interesting during the daylight.
We walked directly across Rt 1 onto an access road across the street, past a self storage place, around a corner, and then to a large parking area that I think is used as an overflow for Gillette Stadium, adjacent to the Bass Pro shop. 
To the right was the Cranberry Bog Nature Trail of Foxboro. We had to turn to the right down a steep slope to get onto the trail going down into the preserve land.
This area was originally a Catfish farm in the 1940s, and then converted to a cranberry bog.
The first part of it is inactive, but the section to the east is still actively used by Ocean Spray.
We walked along the south side of the ponds, over a foot bridge, and on a well worn trail.
The first part of it is inactive, but the section to the east is still actively used by Ocean Spray.
We walked along the south side of the ponds, over a foot bridge, and on a well worn trail.
We made our way through the woods, and we even went well off of the trail, just so no one would have to walk by us.
There was a boardwalk section up the center of this swath of land, but I didn't venture onto it too far.
I moved on down the road as not to look weird right where I came out of the Ocean Spray pond area.
Further down the road, I tried calling her to see what happened, and I walked back and forth on the road to see if I could find here. I directed her to the way I came out when I talked to her and then waited just up the road a bit.
Usually these things are pretty hard, and not very good for eating at all. But what she had found were quite different. And delicous.
She loaded up on bunch of them and handed me one to try. I was surprised that they were this good.
We walked south on Pine Acres Road through a neighborhood to Cross Street.
We soon reached Lakeview Road and continued down to Lakeview Pond where we had turned off of the Warner Trail the night before.
The trail had crossed over the outflow of the pond, Cocasset Brook, and then turned right parallel with it to the east. We turned here, and we could see foundations of probably former mills through trees.
The trail isn't really well marked where it turns onto roads, but I knew about where we needed to be anyway.
We turned left on Rt 140 just a bit, and then went into a few stores for snacks and drinks there.
It was expanded upon through the 1960s, but the hospital closed in 1975 with the de institutionalization of mental health care.
The land was sold at auction in 2005, and redeveloped as the handsome Chestnut Green Apartments. It is an outstanding example of creative reuse of historic property where the grand institutional aesthetic is preserved, yet serves modern function.
The trail was rather narrow at the start, but still easy to follow. It weaved around through the woods and along the edge of the Neponset Reservoir.
Actually, the Neponset River's farthest point is probably the cranberry bog we had started walking at the start of this day.
The reservoir started out in the 1800s when the river was originally dammed for mills.
Soon, we came to a sort of inlet dam area where there was a little slack water to our left, but the main reservoir to the right, where the Neponset River flows directly into the larger lake from the Cranberry bogs and other little ponds.
Jillane was behind me, and I was walking over the dam, which was about the width of two trucks or so there, plenty of safe room.
At this point, the only covid deaths I know personally were my step dad's tenant, who was a chain smoker in a wheel chair, and my cousin's grandfather, who was over 300 lbs and not in good health. Even he had not died from it directly.
I feel it's really resulted in people being treated sub human.
We continued north, and I missed a turn in the trail by going straight where the trail turned right. I caught myself pretty quickly, and Jillane was still behind me, so I waited up just a bit.
At the house at the end of the lane, the trail went to the left into a swath of woods, and came out on Edwards Road.
The whole area here was known as the Whispering Pines community.
We followed Edwards Road to the right for a little while, and I was beginning to wonder if we would ever get to where the trail turned off next. There were spots that I thought looked like could have been it.
Eventually, near another access to Neponset Reservoir on the right, the trail turned to the left. I didn't see any blazes really just yet, but as we followed it through the woods we started seeing them.
From there, it went across the road right through someone's yard.
Usually, when something like this happens I'm able to find it rather easily, but this time I almost had to make an assumption of where we had to go.
We walked along the grass to the wood line, and then cut in on a rough section of foot path. It wasn't very well maintained, not where it was supposed to be. A better path I recall merged from the right.
These ones were more in place than the ones we had crossed the day before, but this area looked to be even less used.
In the weeds adjacent to these puncheons were the rotten remnants of even older ones.
We wandered along these through pretty woods, and then the trail joined an abandoned old woods road.
This was the former route of Dudley Hill Road, which once traveled from the area of Hill Street and Hayden Drive to the south, and went up to Wapole Road or something.
As we got closer to Wapole Road, there was a house off to the right. The trail seemed to come out in the back yard. Weeds and such were not well cut.
A giant oak tree in one of the stone walls between the abandoned road and the private yard had the old style twisted predecessors to barbed wire still growing out of its side.
I found out later that this section of trail was intentionally kept harder to find in order to discourage all but foot traffic from coming through. It was also barely blazed at all through this bit.
It was at this point that the Warner Trail joined with the Bay Circuit Trail, another long distance trail I would very much like to do in it's entirety.
The trail is a whopping 230 miles long, and it maintains a distance of between fifteen and thirty miles north, west, and south of Boston.
Today, it is pretty much a full route, with some road walking, and it is overseen by the Appalachian Mountain Club.
The Warner Trail was used as part of the Bay Circuit from this point to Moose Hill area.
The entrance is at ground level, kind of cut in, but the rest of the area looks like it is just a bed of pine needles. There is also a shed outside. Quite interesting.
At the end of the driveway, the trail enters the woods, hits a woods road for a bit, and then climbs as a foot path up the western side of Pierce Hill in Moose Hill Sanctuary.
When we reached the height of land on Peirce Hill, there was a bit of a view through the trees. The sun was already starting to go down, and I didn't know how far we would end up making it. The nearest hotel we could stay at this time was quite a ways farther.
There were some outstanding views from this vantage point, to the south and west. The sun was setting, and it was quite beautiful.
When I ready about this trail, it was rated among the top ten best long distance trails in the nation.
The route was really rocky just at the overlook, and then it got much easier.
The original fire tower was built in 1917, and it was moved to Moose Hill from its original location on Bluff Head.
There are footings for the predecessor tower just to the side of this one, which I believe must have been the footings for that other tower.
We stopped and took a break at this site.
I could walk right in and get to the base of the tower, and so I wanted to see the view pretty badly.
I climbed the stairs ads quickly as I could, and made my way to just below the box where I had a 360 degree view around.
In the distance to the north, I could see the lights of Boston.
It was kind of sad to know that we wouldn't be making it there on this trip. We actually had a lot more stuff to do if we were to make it there, but I was happy to do that another time. We really had covered a lot of good ground on this hike.
We headed down on the Warner Trail and Bay Circuit Trail on the north side of Moose Hill, which was a little rough in the dark because it got a bit rocky, and then things leveled off.
There were some puncheons, crossed a wider trail (there were a ton of trail intersections throughout this property), and then emerged at the kiosk on the intersection of Moose Hill Street and Moose Hill Parkway.
It was completely dark by this time, and I really didn't want to go on farther not being able to see what I was doing.
Since we were at a good intersection, I called an Uber to come and pick us up, and take us back to the car where we had parked at the starting point.
We got another hotel that night, and then did a little short exploring the next day. We revisited the cranberry bog, another property with caves, and an old cemetery that might have been associated with the Foxboro State Hospital.
I really wanted to continue Bay Circuit Trail and finish Warner, so I would push to come back as soon as possible.
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