{"id":2986,"date":"2018-09-25T22:50:49","date_gmt":"2018-09-26T02:50:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/?p=2986"},"modified":"2018-09-25T22:50:49","modified_gmt":"2018-09-26T02:50:49","slug":"new-route-on-old-roads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/2018\/09\/25\/new-route-on-old-roads\/","title":{"rendered":"New Route on Old Roads"},"content":{"rendered":"

A couple of weeks ago I went for a ride on a Saturday afternoon, looking once again to explore some places I had not gone, even though they are relatively close to home.<\/p>\n

I first rode up to Northampton to run an errand.\u00a0 Then I headed back south as far as the Connecticut River oxbow, and went southwest on the Manhan trail in Easthampton.<\/p>\n

My intention was to head up into the Mt. Tom Reservation, but not via the ways one can drive in.\u00a0 I’d noticed quite a while back that maps show a road going in to the place from East St. in Easthampton, but I’d seen from inside the park that that route is gated off.\u00a0 I wanted to see if it was a road one could take a bike up.\u00a0 The road begins as an actual residential street, as it turns out – it’s called Reservation Road.\u00a0 It goes uphill somewhat, and then the houses end and there’s a gate across the pavement.\u00a0 Once one passes the gate, there is not a whole lot of pavement, and at some points there is only dirt and gravel.\u00a0 Overall, it is more of a hiking path than a road these days.\u00a0 It’s wide enough for a motor vehicle, but you’d need serious tires and 4-wheel drive to get through.\u00a0 Meanwhile, on a bicycle, I was able to ride up most of it, but toward the top it got too steep, so I ended up walking my bike the last eighth of a mile or so to the top gate.<\/p>\n

At that point, I was able to ride out the east side of the reservation, which is a nice route – all downhill and smooth pavement.\u00a0 That took me out to Route 5, where I headed south.\u00a0 As I headed uphill into the Holyoke Highlands, I turned off again, on the Mountain Park Access Road.\u00a0 This road crosses over I-91, then stops outside the gates of Mountain Park, which was once an amusement park but is now an outdoor concert space.<\/p>\n

There are a couple of side roads there that skirt Mountain Park, and which are blocked to car traffic.\u00a0 One of them goes north, and heads partway up the side of Mount Tom.\u00a0 I had been that way once in the past, but had not taken the other road to the south, which is what I did this time.\u00a0 I rode downhill, then around a curve to the west and through a bit of woods to the Whiting Street Reservoir.\u00a0 There is a gravel road that runs around the reservoir, which apparently is officially a cross-country track, used by local school teams.<\/p>\n

On the east side of the reservoir, one has to climb up an embankment to see the water.\u00a0 Here are some views of that (click on photos to see larger versions):<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And here is a pumping station or something (a water works structure of some kind, anyway):
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I rode counter-clockwise around the reservoir, but did not complete a full circuit.\u00a0 When I got down to the south end of the water, I rode out of the area to exit onto Route 141, which I then followed east back to Route 5 and then home.<\/p>\n

Total distance for this ride was 25 miles, but the next couple were longer ones.\u00a0 Stay tuned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple of weeks ago I went for a ride on a Saturday afternoon, looking once again to explore some places I had not gone, even though they are relatively close to home. I first rode up to Northampton to run an errand.\u00a0 Then I headed back south as far as the Connecticut River oxbow, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2986"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2986"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2990,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2986\/revisions\/2990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}