Number in Group: 6
Estimated distance round-trip: 1.5 miles
Weather: 57°F and sunny
Resources: Canton Land Conservation Trust, Uplands Preserve Trail Map
Highlights of the trip: stone walls, quartz
When a beautiful December day like this comes along, you have to get outside! As I told others in the group, I had originally planned a different hike. But after reading the description of the rugged trail and feeling a little sluggish after too much good Thanksgiving food and not enough exercise, I chose this hike as a way to get moving again. We'll work our way up to my more strenuous plans.
The trail for the Uplands Preserve starts at the end of Westwood Drive, a neighborhood of very nice homes on a hill in Canton. The car ride took care of most of the "up" in Uplands, so the hike was as easy as described on the Land Trust's website. When you first enter the woods, you pass through a recently made break in the stone wall and come to a kiosk. We turned to the right on the yellow trail. There was a little confusion at first because the blazes were small and hard to see, but we soon found our way. I suspect the trail is more obvious when there are leaves on the trees and bushes. With the leaves down, everyplace you look seems like it could be the trail.
There were a couple of things we noticed as we walked along the beginning part of the trail. We saw a large nest, out on a limb, near the top of a tree. I would say it was a squirrel's drey, but it just looked too well formed. Most of the ones I see around my own house seem a lot "messier".
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| It just didn't look like a drey. |
The other thing we saw were a lot of trees along the stone walls that had very shaggy bark. I am familiar with shagbark hickory, but this didn't seem the same. I will have to come out here again once the trees are leafed out and figure out what it is.
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| Does anybody know what kind of tree this is? |
We went past the first left-hand turn for the yellow trail and took the next. The trail ran along one of the many stone walls on this property. Given all the trees, it is hard to imagine that this was all cleared land at one point.
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| Lots of stone walls on this property. |
The trail also had some interesting rock outcroppings. I don't know why we didn't explore them. The kids didn't seem that interested even though there was a little cave up there.
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| We should have climbed up there to survey the area. |
We also saw a lot of quartz. In some of the pieces, there looked to be feldspar, as well.
We connected with the blue trail and went around it a counter-clockwise direction back to the kiosk. Just be on the lookout near where the yellow and blue trail connect as there is another unmarked, but easy to follow trail that goes down the hill. On the trail map, it appears as the dashed black line that just sort of ends.
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| Larger trees growing in a line against the stone wall. |
This was an easy hike that got us outside to enjoy a beautiful day. We'll have to check back in the spring and see if we can identify those trees.
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