Hiking Trail Conditions Report |
 | Peaks |
Pigeon Hill (Appleton Farms), MA |
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 | Trails: |
Patton Park Connecting Path, Discover Hamilton Trail, Grass Rides Loop, Cutler Road |
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 | Date of Hike: |
Saturday, January 18, 2025 |
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 | Parking/Access Road Notes: |
The turnoff for Patton Park is on Ashbury St just a couple hundred feet west of its jct with MA 1A/Bay Rd. Drive down a dirt road on the left to access the connecting path. The dirt road has some huge potholes you'll want to avoid, especially if in low clearance. You could always park in the main parking area and walk the extra couple hundred feet too. |
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 | Surface Conditions: |
Snow - Trace/Minimal Depth, Wet Trail, Mud - Minor/Avoidable |
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 | Recommended Equipment: |
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 | Water Crossing Notes: |
I don't think there were any. |
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 | Trail Maintenance Notes: |
Discover Hamilton Trail is marked with small rectangles with the trails name tacked to trees. These are usually few and far between and some sections where they just don't seem to have any. The usual BCT markers are present where it coincides with it. I don't specifically recall any blowdowns. |
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 | Dog-Related Notes: |
Good trails for dogs. They are permitted on all parts of the trail but must be leashed. |
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 | Bugs: |
None |
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 | Lost and Found: |
None |
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 | Comments: |
Second hike of the day. This was a complicated one. Because Discover Hamilton Trail (DHT) coincides with much of the BCT, my personal recommendation would be to combine the two. Of course, if you haven't read all the guidebook and map out your hikes, it's a bit hard to plan that :P. Having done this section of the BCT but not DHT, I chose to break the remaining portions of the DHT into two hikes. This was the first and I included the trails I still needed in Appleton Farms (again, my recommendation would be to include it when hiking the BCT if redlining) as well.
From Patton Park, I hiked to the loop jct. Note that the loop jct is not correctly shown on Gaia. Just north of Black Brook, the trail is shown as splitting and something labelled as Discover Hamilton Trail is shown to the east though it is not. In reality, the trail jct is a short distance north of this I took the right branch as if hiking the loop counterclockwise, redlined the parts of the Grass Ride Loop in Appleton Farms while I was there, walked out to Highland St at Nancy's Corner, walked the road SW for 0.6mi, then took the DHT east back toward Cutler Rd, then walked Cutler Rd back to the southernmost crossing of the trail here and took the trail and connecting path back to my car.
With warm weather, the snow was melting and the trails were wet and there was some minor mud on the trails. That being said, the trails were mostly still had a dusting of snow on them. No spikes needed. Gaia had me at 9.1mi, 150ft of gain, 3hr. |
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 | Name: |
Liam Cooney |
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 | E-Mail: |
liamcooney96@gmail.com |
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 | Date Submitted: |
2025-01-22 |
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 | Link: |
https:// |
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Disclaimer: Reports are not verified - conditions may vary. Use at own risk. Always be prepared when hiking. Observe all signs. Trail conditions reports are not substitutes for weather reports or common sense. |
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