Middlesex Fells Rock Circuit is a moderate to hard 4 mile hike that includes an array of ascends and descends. This is part of the greater Middlesex Fells Reservation The trail runs through the east side of the reservation and its pinnacle (aptly named Pinnacle Rock) overlooks Oak Grove, and in the distance a great view of Boston.

The trail start out on Woodland Road and the best place to park in in the ice rink on Woodland Road. Alternatively there is parking about 100 yards up from the rink on the same side of the road. The entrance to the trail looks like a utility path blocked by a large metal beam. Just go around this and you’ll see the entrance sign (Photo on left). From here you follow the blue marked trail up the hill for about a 1/4 mile until you see the split in the trail for the white trail (Rock Circuit Trail).

Upon starting the Rock Circuit trail you quickly come to understand the reason for the name. The trail immediately starts to climb to the top of the rock ledges that sprinkle the reservation. As you follow the trail you come across many open rock ledges each providing a higher view than the next, but all still lacking any real exposure. Most are surrounded by the towering oak trees that give Oak Grove its name.

After about 1.5 miles you start to descend back towards see level without having really had any “view” to speak of, but not to worry, the grander views are still to come. About 2 miles into the trail you’ll have to cross a road, East Fellsway Road, at which point you quickly ascend back up the rock ledge. About a 1/2 mile from the East Fellsway you’ll come to your first of several impressive views of more than just oak tree trunks. This high ledge, called Black Rock (not the O.A.R. Black Rock), looks out over the small village of Oak Grove and to the right Charlestown and partly the boston harbor. Here we decided to take lunch as the views were the best of the day, not amazing, but still enjoyable, and the ledge seemed to be very flat and wide, which we had previously not seen.

After leaving Black Rock the trail gets a bit more challenging as we weaved through the cliffside, the trail goes up and down as series of ledges one can only imagine were carved by the glaciers so many millions of years ago. The next large open ledge you come across is White Rock. This gives another angle of Oak Grove, but its view beyond that is thwarted by the larger series of ledges that are to follow, so we didn’t give much time to White Rock. After several more climbs you are almost to Pinnacle Rock and the highlight of your travels.

As you approach Pinnacle Rock, we noticed a great 40 or so foot vertical ledge that had several rock climbers on it. If you feel ambitious I recommend bringing some gear (assuming your expierenced). Once upon Pinnacle Rock, your efforts are rewarded with some of the best views of the greater Boston area that are available on the north shore (on the south shore I recommend Blue Hills Reservation Skyline Trail.

The last part of the hike is simply just getting back to your car . I recommend staying for a few minutes and enjoying the sites, although i don’t recommend waiting to eat here, as the rock is not very flat and doesn’t afford many sitting areas. For the rest of the hike just follow the white trail back to where you started hiking, or if you are tired after this, then you can take the Cross Fells trail (orange).

For the GPS data and map on this route see my EveryTrail page and for several more photos my Flickr

Related posts:

1. Middlesex Fells Reservation
2. Ponkapoag Pond Walking Trail
3. Blue Hills Reservation

Lincoln Land Conservation Trust (LLCT) is located in Lincoln, MA only about 25 mins from downtown Boston. It is a couple of trails that go around the Sandy Pond water reservoir. There is a biking trail and several hiking/walking trails. This location is where the great Henry David Thoreau went when he wanted a peaceful retreat from the busy Boston life.

The trails at LLCT are mostly well kept, but are also mostly poorly marked. The trails have changed from what most trail maps say due to changes in the watershed and the makeup of the land, and in a few spots we were unsure where to go. This isn’t a huge problem though since the area is not particularly large, so I would be unlikely that you would get lost. One thing to make sure to bring is bug spray. The area is mostly wetlands and in the humid summer months there tends to be a plentiful amount of mosquitos. We forgot ours and paid the price the whole hike.

The trail we went on was the one that does a 3.7m loop around the entire pond. It starts on the Black Gum Trail and then switches to several other unmarked trails as it snakes its way around the water. The one downside to this spot is that there isn’t really a great spot to look out over the pond. The trail runs relatively far away from the water and the area is heavily wooded.

The trail itself is pretty much flat for the most part with a change of elevation of about 300 ft. You can see my GPS track on my EveryTrail page. One thing to not about this is that we used the Appalachian Mountain Club book to find this spot, but the book told me that we could park at the DeCordova Museum to enter into the trail, but the museum has since changed its policies and they now charge for admission into their grounds so you can’t park there. If you continue down the road you will see a place to park on the side of the road and a trail entrance. This is the start of the Black Gum Trail.

As we started to walked along the trail we immediately noticed the silence that was present.  being removed from any main roadways, made the trail a very quite and peaceful place.  The sound of the forest bugs in their ecosystem is very relaxing.  About a half mile into the trail we came across the first picture in this post.  It was a fireplace from an old house.  I couldn’t help but wonder if I was standing in what was Thoreau’s weekend getaway.

After this interesting find, we continued on our route around the pond.  Every now and then the water would peek out from behind the thick woods to remind us of the course as well as to why the area was so buggy.  After about a mile and a half we came across a memorial for a girl who’d died falling into the pond.  As erie as it was, it was a good reminder why their was fence around the entire thing directing people away from the water.  There was a clever poem on the stone that was sweet and urking at the same time.  It read:

Shiver to think of her light, her warmth.
Fovever frozen in the clear cold pond.
May its glimmer give your pause.
For ice broke hearts the day she drowned.

The trail ends in the parking lot of the Decordova Museum and to get back to your car, you have to walk along the road for about one mile. While still interesting in its own right, not quite the same with cars driving by every now and then. We noticed that there is a continuation of the trail on the left side of the road that enters into a field and exits right across from the parking area, but having been bitten so much, we decided to pass. and save it for another day.

You can check out more photos of this trail on my flickr stream and you can also download and follow the GPS data on Everytrail

Related posts:

1. Middlesex Fells Reservation
2. Middlesex Fells: Rock Circuit
3. Ponkapoag Pond Walking Trail