Thursday, September 07, 2006

Mountain Laurel on South Monoosnuc Hill in Leominster Mass.

...I pushed on uphill and across into the saddle between hills, then got a bit mixed around and turned east towards the major hill and finally came out to the open space under the power lines. It was not as easy to get across that "open space" as the words make it sound. When I got to the other side I wanted to just climb up South Monoosnuc Hill. This is what met my first advance:
Click on the picture and take a closer look. That is what meets the eye. You cannot walk through that stuff. I walked along looking for an opening and thought I found one. Went in about 2 yards and got completely pinned by the branches and twigs and had to turn around and head back out to the power lines. It was not a matter of being strong enough to continue - you just cannot get through without huge contorsions. Maybe you could crawl if you had to, since it looks a little clearer at ground level. Love that stuff! Then I got lucky and found a place where surveyors had carved a trench and I was able to get up higher on the hill where the mountain laurel gave way to oak and pine trees, rocks, and grass.

Up near the top of South Monoosnuc Hill there are surprisingly few stone features. I saw one little prayer seat,
and maybe a rock pile and a wedged rock or two:
How come this hill, which is larger and closer to Mt Wachusett has so many fewer structures than [see several articles here] I was exploring in the weeks before summer vacation? I wondered about this and concluded that the angle from here to Wachusett is just not right. This might provide a great opportunity to go out an measure angles and come to some kind of conclusion. I headed back south down the ridge of the hill, saw a few things along the way and then headed back out to the power lines and across to the slope of the hill I had explored earlier. ...

No comments :