{"id":3497,"date":"2021-09-23T00:07:30","date_gmt":"2021-09-23T04:07:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/?p=3497"},"modified":"2021-09-23T00:07:30","modified_gmt":"2021-09-23T04:07:30","slug":"old-roads-and-roads-no-longer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/2021\/09\/23\/old-roads-and-roads-no-longer\/","title":{"rendered":"Old Roads, and Roads-No-Longer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Friday before last I went on a ride out to the town of Ware, and took a bit different route than I’ve used other times. I started by riding east through South Hadley, Granby, and Belchertown on roads I’d used in the past, until I passed Route 21 in Belchertown. Just past it, I turned north on North Washington Street, and followed that up to a road that appeared on maps, but was not labeled. Here’s what the unlabeled road looks like ( the one that appears to divide in two as it heads northeast):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Map<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That road did not turn out to be much of a road, and was not directly accessible from N. Washington. Just before the point where it starts on the map, and just past some railroad tracks, I came to a dirt bike trail that crossed the road. It turns out that turning right onto that trail leads shortly to a fork, and the left fork takes you onto the “road”, which is little more than a dirt path (the official bike trail heads to the southeast, and happens to be part of the future Mass Central Rail Trail<\/a>). Here’s what the bike trail looks like just after getting onto it (click on images to enlarge):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Dirt<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And here is the view back towards the road crossing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Looking<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I took the left fork to head northeast, and here is what the initial part of the old road looked like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Dirt<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There was a creek to the right, though you can’t see the water in this photo. It was pretty easy to ride the path\/road, and after a while I came to the part where it splits. There is an old bridge there, which I did not want to try crossing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Old,<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From that point there are 2 paths, one on each side of the creek. Here’s a more direct view of the creek itself, and the path on the far side:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Looking<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A little while after this I got close to Route 181, and the clear path seemed to divert into a farm driveway. Not wanting to trespass, I kept going straight, which had me riding through a lot of weeds, some of which were poison ivy. Fortunately, I did not brush any of that with my skin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I emerged onto 181 and headed south a ways to Cold Spring Road, and then took that east. I had to go uphill a little, but then went downhill quite a bit to the Swift River, which forms the town line with Ware. Here’s the river seen from the bridge (looking south):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Looking<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I kept heading east, climbing the hill into Ware. I made my way somewhat north as I went east, and had some downhill riding, followed by more uphill, until I came out on Route 9. I then went east and downhill into downtown Ware, and rode through to the far side of town, where I stopped off at Janine’s Frostee<\/a> for lunch (I had a lobstah roll). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After lunch, I went to ride south on a road that was new to me – one that had been suggested when I mapped my route. On maps it is labeled as “Prendville Road”, and comes off of Route 9 at an acute angle before turning south. However, the road does not have any street sign marking it. I found it after a couple of passes, and double-checking the map, as it looks like it could be a driveway. It goes uphill, and so I started riding up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The road became dirt\/gravel after a few dozen yards – here is what it looks like there, as it climbs up just behind some houses:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Narrow<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I’m not super fond of climbing dirt roads, but this seemed like it might not be too bad. However, the “road” condition got worse as I went. There started to be more rocks, which were bigger and looser as I climbed. After a while it got too difficult to ride, and I had to walk with the bike. Here’s some typical sections of the thing-that-once-was-a-road:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Very<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Road<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It took quite a while to climb up this, basically hiking while pushing a bike. There were some nice views, at least:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"View<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Eventually I got to a point where the road became less rocky, and leveled out. I was then able to ride much of the time, but had to walk the bike around large puddles several times. I then came to a point where the road was flooded by a pond:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"body<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I had walked up onto some high ground to the left of the road to take that picture. Here’s the view looking back at the portion of road I had been on:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Dirt<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The high area I was on did not appear to offer a path past the flooded area, so I went further uphill to the left (east) with my bike, and found a path that led me south through the woods, where I was able to cross a small stream that fed the pond, and then I turned back west and went a bit downhill to rejoin the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just after getting back on the road, I noticed an old town line sign in among the trees. It was very rusty, but you could just make out the words “Town Line”:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Rusty<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The names themselves are no longer legible, but I know that this is the line between Ware and Warren. So, I continued south into Warren. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were a number more large puddles that I had to walk the bike around, so I still was not making great time. Here’s a typical one:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Dirt<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

However, I did finally come to an area where the road became paved, and there were houses lining it. This was also when the road began to go downhill, so I had a nice, easy ride into the Warren town center, where I intersected Route 67. I had originally intended to go further south, into the town of Brimfield, but I had lost so much time climbing out of Ware that I turned west at this point to head home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Route 67 took me into the West Warren area, where there is a little lookout point by the Quaboag River:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"View<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"View<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Here are some of the stores in West Warren:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Parking<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From here I kept going west, getting off 67 in Palmer, and making way slightly north as I went west, passing through Ludlow, and then up into Granby, and back home from there the same way I had come. Total distance for this ride\/hike was 62 miles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Friday before last I went on a ride out to the town of Ware, and took a bit different route than I’ve used other times. I started by riding east through South Hadley, Granby, and Belchertown on roads I’d used in the past, until I passed Route 21 in Belchertown. Just past it, I … 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\/3497"}],"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=3497"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3516,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3497\/revisions\/3516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}