Thursday, June 04, 2015

From Bear Sign to Mound Group

I parked on Ashby West Rd and followed Scott Brook downhill before cutting across the side of the hill northward hoping to get into a ravine I could see on the topo map, east of Lovell Reservoir..
Here were some unfamiliar flowers:
I came across some bear poop, as I mentioned. Which is my first contact with such things in Massachusetts. Eventually I got across the hillside, covered with pine saplings, into the ravine.
As I followed the west side northward, I tried to keep an eye on the eastern side - which looked dull. I kept coming across piles of rock that were ambiguous. Were they natural? Were they part of nearby system of walls? A first of several wall bulges:
Then down to the very top of the ravine - where water first comes out of the ground. And look west:
And look east, and there is a large berm, divided, with smaller piles nearby:
A smaller pile next to the berm:
And a smaller pile next to it:
 See what is in between the heart-leafed lillies?
A busy place - the head of the ravine.
I fell into the poison ivy at one point and rushed down to what was left of the brook to wash my hands in the mud. From the head of the ravine I continued northeast to a lookout over the reservoir then headed back northwest into the remnants of the valley. I was not sure where to go from there but the slope to the northwest was inviting - with large sunny patches of hay-scented ferns and more rock piles that seemed somewhat natural and hard to make out on the slope. I saw more: