Friday, June 13, 2014

Wares Rd Ashby

At the southern end of Willard Brook State Forest, a winding old road and interesting topography, made this seem a good spot to explore. Parked at the bend in the road and stepped directly into a rock pile site.

Looking back at the paved road, note the large rock underoot.
A closeup

Walk in along this road and there are rock piles on either side.


The site consist of the broad shoulder, with the road climbing gently and 20 or so piles; old, and leaf-covered. Not much structure after all this time.

This sort of layout, in this part of norther Middlesex, usually is accompanied by my favorite "prey" of larger rectangular piles with interior hollows. So I went looking to the uphill side of the site, left side of the road, up against the sharper rise of the ridge. Was this what I was looking for?
Someone built something on top of this pile, so I was discouraged that it was not what I was looking for. But I continued north along the side of the ridge and came to other examples - some more than others. This pile was the clearest example:
But there were others that I am convinced are man-made structures, along the same landform (and possibly also on the south side of Wares Rd on the same landform):
I don't know about the rock with the drill hole but the other features of this site are typical: a scattering of low ground piles, more or less evenly spaced, with some larger rectangular mounds at the uphill edge of the site.
I lost my camera here a few weeks before. The replacement camera has a fresh lense and a whole mess of internal settings I need to  play with. But it works about the same as before. As I look at the map, knowing that it is hard going through class B mountain laurel, I still want to explore more thoroughly in this area. It is easy to get turned around in there and even short distances can be tiring.

3 comments :

Tim MacSweeney said...

3rd photo - http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-htzQGm7ps4Y/U5rF4G5QIXI/AAAAAAAAXSY/-iKbK71oeB8/s1600/WaresRd+(6).JPG

resembles this one on a stone row:
http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2014/04/turned-around-to-look-at-turtle.html

Tim MacSweeney said...

And that flat sort of stone resembles the one in the center above the entrance of the Stone Beehive from Matt H...

Tim MacSweeney said...

Larry H photo: http://ceremonial-landscapes.com/blog/images/DSCN1114.JPG from http://www.ceremonial-landscapes.com/blog/index.php?/archives/340-A-stone-row-and-cairn-field..html