Wednesday, May 31, 2006

More of the Bolton Conservation Land

Friend from Carlisle (FFC) convinced me to go back to the site of the gurgling brook in Bolton to look for my cellphone. I already mentioned that. After finding the phone and re-visiting the nice site, FFC headed uphill in a more southerly direction. Right before hitting suburbia there was another cluster of rock piles on a dry knoll. The piles were mostly on the ground or supported, perhaps a bit like the nearby hilltop site from the previous day.
Here is one more from up there.
The large leaves in the foreground are from an American Chestnut. They grow up from roots which are still there and then are blighted by the time they get to around 20 feet tall, preventing them from getting to the point of flowering.

Here is a the view back downhill towards the wetland:
In this view we are facing roughly northeast, the gurgling brook site is downhill and to the left.

Walking downhill, as we get towards the bottom and the edge of the wetland, FFC says: ooh! I have a good feeling about this place. Then he got excited at what turned out to be a major split-wedged rock, pretty much at the swamp edge:
In the foreground of the next picture, note the pile of burnt broken rocks in a ground pile.
I read that sweat lodges were built close to water and that the heated rocks would be left behind in a pile. So we keep our eyes open for that possibility. Perhaps this pile in the foreground represents a sweat lodge. Here we are at the edge of the swamp. The gurgling brook is perhaps 30 yards beyond this large split-wedged rock.

There were a number of things right along the edge of the swamp here:

After this we returned to the place of the gurgling brook which is only a few yards northwest along the edge of the swamp. Here it is from the south:
After that we went back up and around the hill and down the other side to the car. The town line cuts across these hills. Starting with the seat and the nice lady and the lost arrow, we were in the conservation land demarcated by this stone wall - by this town line. Back near the car at the entrance of the conservation land, you can see this standing stone, with a "B" on one side for Bolton and and "S" on the other for Stow.
If you look carefully you can see a bit of FFC behind this stone.

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