The Tour de Mink Pond

The Tour de Mink Pond is a once around circuit of Mink Pond in Concord's Estabrook Woods (the woods that Thoreau walked in) which is supposed to pass all the rock pile sites A-H. I have already written about F,G,and H (here and here) but I went out to explore in that vague area between Mink Pond and Hubbard Hill and ended by completing a circuit but skipping F,G, and H. The whole walk would be a mile or a mile and a half. [All locations are approximate.]

A - passed it without stopping this time. In the past, blogged about here.
B - an isolated pile consisting of an oblong with a separate single stone on its axis. Have seen this before:C - I got down into a gully between the drumlin/esker formations in there, spotted water and saw the shadow under a rock that is the telltale clue:
A new Concord rock pile. Suspicious that it might be isolated, I gave credit to a small cluster of larger rocks nearby:Then I saw a number of pretty scrappy rock piles along the water's edge. It bothered me that in some cases they seemed to overlap. A very strong attribute of field clearing is that the piles are built on top of each other and overlap. Here are three "bumps" that are sort of separate and sort of overlapping - at the water's edge:Although smeared, this is still a very organized pile:These are so far gone, I suppose it is hard to care for such things except these happen to be in my hometown. I am not sure they are ancient but I think one could make the case. There was no field nearby just the tail end of a glacial cobble deposit, where it drops off into a brook.

Across the way we are looking at the lower southwestern slopes of Hubbard Hill:
I walked over there.
D - A couple of traces, perhaps nothing.E - More cobbles at the edge of a cobble ridge, next to the water, perhaps nothing but a bit more clustered into piles than random. I could not tell:After that, I circled around the northern end of Mink Pond and returned towards my car on the main path ("Estabrook Rd"). I think I found a new site at C but things became increasingly indistinct. You could make a nice tour of the place, including A,B, and C as a mid-point on your way to F where things get interesting again. I'll have to work on the leg that goes from H back to the entrance.