Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Fenton Road, Leominster State Forest

Although much of Leominster State Forest is impenetrable because of the mountain laurel, I have often wished I could get to some of the more obscure parts. I noticed a thin trace of forest road leading north from Parmenter to the right of Rocky Pond and, because I had once noticed those little brooks descending the hill north of there and also because that little forest road leads over to at least one of the brooks, I thought it would be worth the effort to get out there, even though it amounted to a mile or so of slogging on those Leominster State Forest roads. So off I went on Sunday. That little forest road has the name "Fenton Road" and it runs just as indicated before stopping. After that you can continue on State Forest Paths and I did for less than a quarter of a mile before stopping and thinking I had gone far enough. By then the woods had opened up a bit on the right and it was possible to explore east and downhill from the path. There was a very indeterminate rock pile site there - close by an old foundation and with very little sense of sacredness or ceremony. Could they be something other than ceremonial? I was not able to decide but was not so thrilled with the discovery. Then I turned back and got off the path to explore down stream at the point that Fenton Rd crosses the brook (above the "R" at the end of "LEOMINSTER"). Sure enough there was a site there as I had hoped. Ironically I proposed an experiment long ago involving predicting where the rock piles were and then going to check. Well one of my predicted locations was exactly that brook and, I think, I just succeeded with the original experiment. Yes there were rock piles there.

I walked all the way up Fenton till it turned to path, followed that along for several hundred yards, and then saw a kind of rough wall made of earth and rock heading downhill to the east. The woods were open enough in that direction that I got off the path to go take a look and found rock piles (approximately in the upper blue outline). They are really non-descript. No quartz, no sense of alignment, no sense of shape.
It is nice to see them in the laurels. Perhaps they are quite distinct in a shape I do not recognize.

These piles were near this structure, a historic age foundation for I don't know what.
I poked around a bit back to the south along the same slope of hill and came on another small cluster.Still not very satisfied I must believe these are Indian piles perhaps because they are small and placed on boulders. So I went back to the trail and walked back sotuhward towards the end of Fenton Road....[continued in subsequent post].

1 comment :

pwax said...

Look at that brook emanating from the location of the lower blue outline. Look closely. There are many worthwhile looking places further downhill that look well worth exploring. I bet you can at least follow the course of the water and penetrate the mountain laurel. A bit more presistence is called for in the exploration of that area.