{"id":1658,"date":"2024-03-16T18:41:14","date_gmt":"2024-03-16T23:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/?p=1658"},"modified":"2024-03-21T19:55:45","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T00:55:45","slug":"assabet-river-nwr-ma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/assabet-river-nwr-ma\/","title":{"rendered":"Assabet River NWR, MA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>That <A HREF=\"epic-road-trip-2024\/\">same road trip<\/A> that took me to <A HREF=\"lake-anna-va\/\">Lake Anna, VA<\/A> also carried me to the vicinity of the <A HREF=\"https:\/\/www.fws.gov\/refuge\/assabet-river\">Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge<\/A> in Massachusetts. Of course, I can&#8217;t pass up an opportunity to wander in the woods.<\/p>\n<p>As you might expect from the name, there are wetlands here, although the trails did not go all the way to the Assabet River itself.<br \/>\n<A HREF=\"https:\/\/flic.kr\/p\/2pDJqQD\"><IMG SRC=\"\/media\/PXL_20240308_144218781_tn.jpg\"><\/A><br \/>\n<A HREF=\"https:\/\/flic.kr\/p\/2pDKu78\"><IMG SRC=\"\/media\/PXL_20240308_173811526_tn.jpg\"><\/A><br \/>\nA rather complicated passage to get out on the fishing pier.<br \/>\n<A HREF=\"https:\/\/flic.kr\/p\/2pDJqPX\"><IMG SRC=\"\/media\/PXL_20240308_172827334_tn.jpg\"><\/A><br \/>\nThe trails were pretty easy fare, and adequately marked. There weren&#8217;t any blazes, but most of the intersections had some sort of signage.<br \/>\n<A HREF=\"https:\/\/flic.kr\/p\/2pDJqQt\"><IMG SRC=\"\/media\/PXL_20240308_152548942_tn.jpg\"><\/A><br \/>\nMaybe it&#8217;s just the way they do things in this part of the world, this is the only example of trail sigh graffiti I&#8217;ve seen in my travels. For the record, I did not see any nude trails, they all had decent coverings of leaves.<br \/>\n<A HREF=\"https:\/\/flic.kr\/p\/2pDJqNu\"><IMG SRC=\"\/media\/PXL_20240308_174320635_tn.jpg\"><\/A><br \/>\nThis area used to be part of the US Army&#8217;s Natick Labs before 2000, and there are numerous old bunkers around.<br \/>\n<A HREF=\"https:\/\/flic.kr\/p\/2pDL4GW\"><IMG SRC=\"\/media\/PXL_20240308_182331320_tn.jpg\"><\/A><br \/>\n<A HREF=\"https:\/\/flic.kr\/p\/2pDL4Gv\"><IMG SRC=\"\/media\/PXL_20240308_181439430_tn.jpg\"><\/A><br \/>\nOne thing that is different in this part of the world from my home range is that the towns are all shoved up against each other. There&#8217;s no leaving one town and going 15 miles to get to the next one. This marker along the trails is where three towns come together.<br \/>\n<A HREF=\"https:\/\/flic.kr\/p\/2pDJqP1\"><IMG SRC=\"\/media\/PXL_20240308_182020562_tn.jpg\"><\/A><br \/>\nThis is the smallest area I hiked on this trip, but any time in the woods is worth it. Again, the weather was perfect, starting off chilly but warming up nicely in full sun. A nit to pick: I didn&#8217;t find a printable trail map online. I always carry a paper map (or two), just in case all the technology falls apart.<\/p>\n<p>I thought sure that I&#8217;d see some snow on the ground in Massachusetts this time of year, but that was a disappointment. Another sign of climate change.<\/p>\n<p>Strava link: <A HREF=\"https:\/\/www.strava.com\/activities\/10918279753\">https:\/\/www.strava.com\/activities\/10918279753<\/A><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>That same road trip that took me to Lake Anna, VA also carried me to the vicinity of the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge in Massachusetts. Of course, I can&#8217;t pass up an opportunity to wander in the woods. As you might expect from the name, there are wetlands here, although the trails did not [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1658"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1674,"href":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1658\/revisions\/1674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}