Various not particularly successful explorations

I tried to find rock piles each day of the three days of the long weekend with little to show for it. Monday, in desperation, I even went on a second walk later in the day - all to little or no avail. I wanted you to know that I kept trying.

So Saturday, I went to Harold Parker State Park in Andover MA, and then also spent time exploring a water tower hill over in that vicininty. At Harold Parker I, more or less, stepped into the woods and found a rock pile - but it was the last thing I saw there. Then at the water tower hill I got tired of pushing through the blueberry bushes. Ended by collecting some very tastey Concord grapes instead, but there were no interesting rock structures. On my way home I stopped in Lincoln to photo an interesting little chamber-like structure. A messy little site I'll tell you about later.

Then Sunday, I thought I would take the safe course and go back to explore one more conservation land in Weston. Recall that for the last two weekends I found some very nice rock pile sites down there, maybe 15-20 minutes from my house. I figured I couldn't go wrong, since Weston has been moved into the "never disappoints" category. But it came close. The first conservation land revealed nothing to me, so I went back to explore around the fringes of one of the sites from last weekend. I did find a new small cluster of piles, which I'll report in due course. Then I slogged back out to the car.

Then Monday, I took my 11-year old son Joe with me to climb a hill I have had my eye on for some time: "Little Wachusett" which is directly south of Wachusett Mountain. It seems clear that Curtis Hoffman's belief that much or all of the ceremonial activity in Eastern Mass. is focused on this largest hill (not really a mountain) is, if not exactly right, still slightly true. So anything associated to Wachuesset, like this small hill immediately to the south, is likely to be part of the same system. This was born out to the extent that the most interesting structures on the summit (there were a few) were on the northern side of the summit, facing the main "mountain". I'll report on this too. Finally, after coming home to eat a little lunch, I headed back out to Carlisle where I wanted to explore more in the "David Corridor" conservation land. Unfortunately this flat and undifferentiated bit of pine woods and swamp is not any different from the direction I entered this time than any other time. I rapidly tired of slogging through the bushes (sweet pepper bush in this case) and ended up only photo'ing one solitary split-wedged rock.

All-in-all not much. A couple of piles here. A little arrangement there. A split-wedged rock some otherwhere. I'll drag it out for the rest of this week. Perhaps someone else was luckier this weekend and will send in some pics? Let's hope so. Meanwhile, here is one pile from Harold Parker State Forest in Andover, MA.
Here is the location: a sand and gravel ridge extending out into the surrounding wetland.Of perhaps minor interest, here is what looked like a rock pile in the trail. It looked like it might have been tumbled off an adjacent rock, visible to the lower right.
Next up: the Lincoln structures.