Emery/Six Ponds East Preserves, November 8, 2009

The first dry - and warm day in weeks, so I suddenly announced I was going for a walk. I had been promising myself I would walk at least a portion of the Emery Preserve for months, ever since I noticed the signs that had gone up in the area: one that I thought to be its northern trail head - just south of Clark Road on the east side of Long Pond Road, and the other on Ship Pond Road. The Long Pond Road site had once been an old dump of sorts - a spot that the town had blocked off with large boulders and where occasionally you still see large quantities of yard waste left.. A place as well, where town police - by backing up into the cleared space just south, often try and catch speeders that accelerate on that one straight stretch of roadway.

But now, or so the signs promise, instead of a place where locals once gave a quick heave to unwanted buckets, bottles and such, it has become the entrance to one of the town's newest nature walks - part of the Wildlands Trust. The green and white sign uses large letters to indicate that the area is a Wildlands Trust property, but the actual name of the preserve is small, nearly impossible to read as you drive by. I assumed the Long Pond Road sign said "Emery Preserve" because I am acquainted with one of the former owners who now lives nearby, along the Pond itself, and because of a Wildlands Trust parking lot that has been carved out of the woods bordering Ship Pond Road, to the south. One day during this past spring - as I was cutting through that area to get to the Indian Brook baseball fields on 3A, I had noticed the similar signage, and had pulled over to read the smaller print. The small print on the sign on Ship Pond Road read "Emery Preserve"..

The Ship Pond Road trail head is literally just two minutes from my home, so that's where I began, expecting to walk north on the trail, reach the Long Pond terminus, and then backtrack to my car.

Once you turn into Ship Pond Road off Long Pond road, the parking area (on the left) is just a few hundred yards in. I arrived about 10:20, and though the weather was warm, the sky bright - I was alone. I parked and took my bearings. The entrance is flanked by two upright logs, and just a few feet into the woods there is a new bulletin board where you might expect to find a map of the area and the available trails. But under the glass I found only general descriptions of the work of the Wildlands Trust [Note that if you go to their website the Emery Preserve is not listed yet among its catalogue of woodland walks. Instead, you can watch a video of Charlotte 'Emery' Russell (who still lives nearby) describing why her family donated the land that comprises the preserve to the Wildlands Trust].

So.. without maps the first thing you must consider is the trail itself, and whether it will present any particular challenges. At this time of the year - under mid-Autumn's bounty of leaves, fallen branches and other detritus, (and considering that it is a new trail that has not seen many visitors), the trail is not easy to follow. Fortunately the first portion is well marked with the Wildland Trust's diamond-shaped, white metal marker. These markers are affixed to healthy trees, about 7 or eight feet off the ground.

10:26 a.m. From the trail head on Ship Pond Road it takes only a minute or so of walking before you begin to head downhill - noticing changes in elevation that for a hiker are appreciable, but that you would be likely to ignore in your car. Be careful in this early going because the trail bobs and weaves a bit, and after a short time takes a sharp turn to the right that is easy to miss. Go slow, and look for the markers.

Whatever its other attributes, deep woods silence is not one of the benefits of this walk. Most of the Emery Preserve is within 15 minutes of either Long Pond Road, Ship Pond Road, or the State highway. Consequently - especially in the early going, you should expect to hear cars, motorcycles and such. Less than ten minutes in the trail approaches, then skirts the edge of a fairly deep kettle (if you have time, mark your location and inspect the geology of this glacial depression) - about an acre or so in diameter and perhaps 30 feet deep.

After about 20 minutes or less of hiking (I meander, take photos, notes - so you may cross the same terrain in much less time) the trail comes to a T where there is no additional signage. You have to go either left or right or turn back. If you go to the left, your senses will tell you, you will probably come rather quickly to Long Pond Road. To the right - given the lack of trail maps or descriptions available, it is hard to tell. I didn't want to leave the relatively quiet sanctuary of this middle ground too soon so - hoping that a right turn was actually just a longer, roundabout way to reach the old dump off Long Pond Road, I took that direction. Before I did so though, I noticed a different marker about ten yards down the left fork (westerly). It was a circular, metal marker, and it bore the inscription: "Plymouth Wishbone Walking Trail" - with the center listing the Town of Plymouth, the DCR (a State organization) and the Wildlands Trust as sponsors. I was unfamiliar at the time with the 'Wishbone' Trail, so that was no help to me at all. I took the right fork anyway (easterly) and shortly thereafter came across another 'Wishbone' marker, and then the triangle of the Wildland's Trust. That right turn kept bending to the right, went over a small ridge, in a few minutes seemed to be heading south (back to my parked car?). This is where I saw the "H" (pictured above) made by two, bare trees: one with a long branch that crossed the path, and the other that formed the right pillar of the 'H'. I passed under this H and a few minutes later moved down into a low area of briars and bushes, berries and vines - and heard the rustle and chirping of a number of birds that were probably attracted by the food. At this low spot I also noted that the sounds of vehicles was growing louder again and - sure enough, in a few seconds came through the trees out onto Ship Pond Road again, just a few hundred yards up the road from where I had parked.

I had only been walking for a half hour at this point, so I simply turned around and headed back to that T intersection, intending to go straight through the T and see how quickly I would come upon Long Pond Road. Though there is no parking area where I came out on Ship Pond Road, if you want to enter from that point note that there is a small post with the number '17' inscribed near the top, along with another large green Wildlands Trust sign .

It only took me 15 minutes to get back to the T intersection even though I stopped a few times to take pictures and notes. The sun was right above me then, and I was particularly impressed with the variety of color from still-green ground cover, rust-colored oak leaves, the occasional white and golden brown mushrooms, various mosses and lichens - and the gray backing of scrub pine bark.

On the way back I was particularly interested in seeing if I could find a landmark that would help hikers avoid missing the turn back to the Ship Pond parking area, and that is when I came across what I will call "the Hula Tree": a scrub pine tree with no limbs for the first ten or fifteen feet and a trunk that undulates like a hula dancer.. sort of. About 30 yards after seeing this dancing pine tree you will come across the left turn for the trail back to the Ship Pond parking area.

When you take the trail past that intersection it drops down quickly and in a less than a minute you will find yourself in a thicket and have to dip your head and lift  your feet to avoid becoming entangled in briars, to get through. Once through the thicket the trail moves uphill and to the right (northeast?), and the sounds of Long Pond Road grow louder with each step.Unfortunately, there are no longer any trail markers - at least not the traditional variety. A little further on you do see - dangling from tree limbs, the faded pink remnants of property ribbons. Those seem to be the trail markers here. Soon though, those ribbons disappear as well. It's tricky here: hard to tell if you are on the trail or not. I was not too concerned given the nearby road, but I stopped to reconnoiter. Looking around I saw a strange sight about 40 yards away: a large, rusted teak kettle and a metal bucket, hanging from the limbs of a tree. After marking  my spot, I pushed through the undergrowth to this decorative tree. I noted that both objects were bottomless (completely rusted out), and looked to be at least 25 years old. I made my way back to the area I had left, then pushed on in a northerly direction for a minute or so, but soon concluded that I had lost the trail. I  backtracked toward the last sight of the ribbons and as I passed sight again of the rusted metal objects, I wondered if they were not some kind of property marker. I walked back over to them and - looking to my right, saw the faint outline of a trail and, further south, realized that I had missed a sudden turn that was marked - only after the turn, by a few more faded ribbons.

I should confess now that a day later I drove to the Long Pond Road trail head and was surprised on two accounts. First, the small print indicates that this spot is part of the "Six Ponds Preserve - East" property, not the Emery Preserve. And secondly, as far as I can tell there is as yet, no trail head at all.

Though the trail head on Ship Pond Road and the path up to the 'T' have nice new trail markers, this section of the trail appears to have no traditional markers at all. I walked north for another ten or fifteen minutes, relying on many other 'rustic' markers, including a cast iron skillet hanging from the stub of a branch, but I am not sure if I was on the future site of a Six Ponds East Preserve trail, or just walking along an old property line. Perhaps the land to the east of the buckets and skillets was part of the Emery Preserve? In any case this trail moved parallel to Long Pond Road at first, then moved east and wriggled back and forth until it came to what I believe had been a local dump.Whether it was the dump that I had earlier associated with the Long Pond trail head I can't say. The only materials to have survived were those made of metal, or glass, or ceramics of some kind. The only recognizable label I found on any, was on the bottle cap of a large, quart-sized green glass bottle of "Cliquot Club". There were metal buckets, large and small, brown glass bottles, spotted ceramic bowls, and some unrecognizable tools or apparatus as well. I spent a few minutes picking through this debris, looking for something of interest, but that was essentially the end of my hike.

The trail - or what I assumed was the trail, was still moving in northeasterly direction at that point. I might have been 15 seconds - or fifteen minutes from the Long Pond Road 'Six Ponds' sign, but I couldn't be sure.

I turned back at 11:37. By 11:55, navigating by skillet and tea kettle, I was back at the 'T'. Not pausing at all now it took me only about ten minutes more to reach the parking lot on Ship Pond Road. Before I got in my car I noted that the same trail (and the Emery Preserve) continue south, entering the woods again just on the other side of Ship Pond Road.

A little post-hike web research revealed that the Plymouth "Wishbone" Trail, will be an interconnected series of trails (approximately 15 miles long) beginning near the headquarters of the Myles Standish State Forest, and branching in two directions. The northern branch will head up the north side of Halfway Pond Road, following the Eel River for a while, passing through the Russell Pond area and ending up in downtown Plymouth. The southern 'bone' of the Wishbone trail may pass through the 'Six Pond' area, over Long Pond road into the Emery Preserve, eventually ending up at the ocean in Ellisville State Park. The Wishbone trail is a great idea, and one that I would hope to hike in its entirety in the near future - provided of course that the trails are marked and maps made available.