Thursday, October 20, 2016

I had a nice experience - East branch of North Brook, Berlin

The valley between Sawyer Hill Rd and Sawyer Hill looked intriguing and I headed over there last weekend because the whole area around Gates Pond has "good stuff". I wanted to explore the saddle between Sawyer Hill and a rise to northwest. Getting down into that valley is a pain if you come in from the west (I parked on Sawyer Hill Rd and walked east) and very thick, but I punched through into clean woods and got about over to where I wanted to start looking.
Here is the nice experience: standing about where the blue dot appears on the map in that saddle, I was planning my route - looking off to the southwest and thinking about going down in there. Thinking...."OK if I am going down in there, is there anything up here to look at first before I go down there? What about the highest headwaters to the left here and behind me?" So I turned around and there was a small rock pile right there:
Solitary rock piles don't tell you much. So I looked carefully in one direction and around and back in another and saw a kind of bump with growth blocking it from view. Then, what d'ya know? Something bigger:
Some other views:
 Upper surface
There is internal structure there but not obvious hollows. Except for that vagueness this larger 'mound' has all the attributes typical rock piles found where brooks begin. In this case it is the east branch of North Brook in Berlin.

I did not find much else on the walk. I have been taking it easy lately and did not go down into the valley because it was too overgrown. I did notice that this site, with the mound and smaller 'satellite' pile, was adjacent to a well constructed wall opening. With reference to what I was writing here, these openings are inviting and have been useful guides:
 You can sense the larger mound in the center background of this picture:
The smaller pile is off through this opening to the left about 30 feet.

For what it is worth, when I climbed back up to Sawyer Hill Rd from the east, I crossed the road and saw some broken down piles on the crest of the ridge, almost in someone's backyard:


These are as important as anything else, just harder to see.

5 comments :

Tim MacSweeney said...

Look at this image: http://cdn2.arkive.org/media/EE/EE5EE966-0EAE-4BB8-B6FF-4E8F0628C6A0/Presentation.Large/Timber-rattlesnake-close-up.jpg and then take a look at the large flat boulder, maybe slightly disturbed at some point, in photo #9. Note how the segment undulates in height, the stacked stones perhaps meant to resemble the markings of the rattlesnake...

Tim MacSweeney said...

I saw this that looks much like #9 for the first time yesterday: https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mIP7muviz8Y/WAooH-GIQaI/AAAAAAAAY-w/BJqT6yd594khh-6r5eOAjo2fHyO-oKl6gCLcB/s1600/3%2Brivers%2Bflat%2Bhead%2Bsnake%2Bgateway%2Btoward%2Bthe%2Bend%2Bof%2Boct%2B062.jpg

pwax said...

Undulating or knocked over. I did look carefully enough along the side.

pwax said...

I meant "did not"

Tim MacSweeney said...

I've really been paying attention to those "well constructed wall openings," ever since finding the snake-like boulder with that well defined white quartz eye feature at the former home of the first minister in Bethlehem CT. The next opening to the north of that gateway is remarkably similar to the one you photographed.