BCT - Walden Pond, Concord to Sedge Meadow, Wayland

Bay Circuit Trail - Walden Pond, Concord to Sedge Meadow, Wayland
Saturday October 26, 2013

Distance according to the trail guide 6.8 miles, actual distance due to detours another mile or two.

Walkers in attendance 2 - Ted, Larry

Weather in low 40's starting our finished in the mid 50's, sunny

Started hiking 11:00 AM finished 3:30 PM

We hiked from the parking lot at Walden pond near the top right to
the parking area at Sedge Meadow near the bottom left

We dropped the downstream car at Sedge Meadow and parked the upstream car in the lot at Walden pond. We then hiked counter clockwise around the pond picking up the Bay Circuit trail near the Thoreau house site.

This trail section actually starts at the junction of Rt 2 and Rt 126. We skipped that bit. Will come back and do that bit sometime.

From the house site the trail runs around Walden pond, along the MBTA tracks, then out to and crosses Rt 126.  We were surprised that you are allowed to cross the tracks to access the trails in the Wright woods but those look interesting for day hikes in the future.  

Trail runs parallel to rt 126 through woods and along farm fields crossing over the same MBTA tracks on the Rt 126 bridge.

Crossing back over to the west side of Rt 126 the BCT makes use of the trails in the Mount Misery conservation area of Concord to get over to rt 117. These trails look great for shorts walks or biking. We saw a couple of guys on CX style bikes in full kit at one point. Plan to return here and explore more some day.  The BCT runs through some farm property where we saw a collection of older tractors, Here is picture of a Farmall Cub which I liked,

Old Machinery Picture of the Day

The BCT then comes out of the woods and crosses Rt 117 before going down a driveway and around the end of scenic Farrar pond.   Plan to come back with a canoe some time and explore the pond. Guide mentions a canoe launch on Rt 117.  Sat on the spillway of the dam and ate lunch.

Farrar Pond

After the pond the trail comes out near an old nike missile site where it switchbacks several times. These switch backs, about a 1/4 mile in length, are so close to each other that we could look through the woods and see where we had hiked just minutes ago.

Coming out on the road we lost the trail for the first time. There were no markers for the left turn onto Campbell. Perhaps it was behind one of the many lost cat posters stapled to the telephone poles or perhaps the trail maintainers just felt the street sign which we saw but ignored was plenty of information.

We probably walked 1/3 mile in in the wrong direction, finally checked the trail guide for the name of the road we were looking for, asked for directions and got turned around.

Back into the woods we hiked along the ridge between some kettle holes.  The ground dropped off quickly an impressive distance on each side of the trail.

We came back out of the woods.  The guide mentioned that the next part of the BCT which runs through Castle Hill conservation area is often underwater due to beaver activity. Ignoring this warning and the fact that the white blazes were missing we continued on.  

The map showed the trail running along the west side of a pond and described the trail as being an colonial era road. We found the road and saw the pond so we were sure the we were on the right trail. We did continue to notice the lack of white blazes. 

Bumping into private property signs, tree limbs on the trail, and a chain stretched across the trail we began to get the idea that the trail we on did not go through.

Retracing our steps we tried a trail to the east. At one point this trail crossed a natural gas pipeline before bumping into someones back yard.  Looking along the natural gas pipeline where it crossed the shallow end of the pond there was a line of rushes growing out of the water as though that part of the pond might not be as deep.

At this point we could here traffic on Rt 126 and we were pretty sure if we could just cross one of these yards we could be back on the trail.  I spotted a man working in his backyard and we yelled from the woods that we were lost and could use some directions. Turned out he was familiar with the trail and said the bog bridge mentioned in the trail description once crossed the pond where we had seen the rushes. He said it had been underwater for the past 15 years.  He knew quite a bit about the history of the BCT and the attempts to reroute it around this area.  He gave us directions for the rest of our hike, let us cross his property and offered to refill our water bottles. Soon we were again walking along Rt 126 and following the white blazes.

The rest of our hike was along route 126 and then a right onto Moore road to the Sedge Meadow parking area where we had left the car.

Once home I zoomed in on the trail map. It shows a proposed route for the Castle Hill trail which goes the other direction on the natural gas pipeline, avoids Rt 126, and gets you over to Sedge Meadow. Until that's open hikers should skip this part and use the route on the roads suggested in the guide.