I have reported on FSF before,
here and
here, when I visited the central and northern parts of the park. So on this visit, I went in from the end of Lorraine Metcalf Rd and stayed as far left as possible.
I spent most of the walk slogging - it rained hard the night before and -boy- is there a lot of Sweet Pepper Bush in there! I found some mounds around Magotty Hill but also got tuckered out when trying to return to the car I found myself at the water tower at the high point of the Forge Hill. Luckily I recognized the place and only had to do another mile of slogging to get back to the car.
So I want to say that the first mound, at A, was exactly where I expected to find something. I had taken a trail to the left from Lorraine Metcalf and, after it crossed a brook (you can see a western branch of Mine Brook there) there was another side trail leading off south. Kept south for a few yards until a stone wall crosses the trail and I followed the wall west down towards the wetland, thinking: "now this is the kind of place I expect rock piles". Sure enough, I poked my head into the bushes on the north side of the wall and saw something looming in the distance. I showed a video a couple posts ago. Here are some still photos. First a fuzzy picture from a nearby "satellite" pile towards the larger mound.
Better:
If there was a 'hollow' it was at the far end (more like what I called a "tail" in the past).
Some other views:
How cool is that?
I continued south by bush and trail and eventually found some very messy things next to a field (at B) which I did not trust. I suspect these were real but added to by field clearing. I'll spare you all but a couple of the photos:
The piece of quartz swayed my opinion.
I continued west along and through some cleared field areas on Magotty Hill, then headed north. The underbrush was heavy and I exited the cleared area at the only spot (at C) where I would have seen this, and I take no credit for finding it - just lucky:
(from the field view)
(view back towards the open field)
That one is definitely real.
After seeing these mounds in the southern part of the forest, I walked through thick wet bushes all the way north and then most of the way back to the car.
Update: I guess a chronological account like this, coming after many of the same ilk, adds little value other than the location of some rock piles - someone living nearby might want to go have a look. But in truth, what is observable at these sites is piles that are built up quite high - meaning they are young, without the type of "hollow" I expect to see in mounds further north. Should I compare these mounds to the ones over in Hassanamesit and Peppercorn Hill? My experience is still too patchy to make these comparisons confidently.
