Spring Walk Back to Walden

A way through the pines

Famously, we’ve been told that you can never go home, but you can walk in your own and others’ footsteps. And so, on this April weekend past, given a few hours for wandering, we set out to do just that. We left from the parking area by Bear Garden Hill and aimed first for Walden by the fine, pine-needle-softened trails that lead into the Wright Woods and on to the pond. Then around the pond, its surface rippled by a cool wind, its fisherfolk seemingly stationed every 50 yards along the thin strand that surrounds it during this low water phase. Then back across the Fitchburg Line’s tracks, and down by the Andromeda Ponds – mostly eutrified now – toward Fairhaven, following the flow of old glacial melt. Skirting Fairhaven, where the spring waters had receded just enough to let us pass, and finally returning along the broad Sudbury, stopping a few times to admire the eruptive skunk cabbage in the small, wet valleys above the river.

Here are some sights from along such a way:

Lone fisher on the water

5-stalk birch on Heywood’s Peak

Waiting on the Fitchburg Line

Favored pine on the Fairhaven Trail

Maple flowers at Fairhaven

Skunk cabbage rill

Hands-on bark of favored pine