Valentine's Day Hike

Abram and I celebrated Valentine's Day with a long hike.  The weekend before Valentine's Day, he had asked what I wanted to do.  Having dinner on a week night when most places are already booked did not seem fun to me.  I'd rather be active, so I suggested hiking.

We often do a long hike up Mt. Wachusett starting at the Audubon Society.  I wanted to do a different hike this time.  Abram had taken the day off on Thurs to spend the day with me; that in of itself is a great gift!

The Midstate Trail goes north to south through the middle of Massachusetts.  It is broken up into several sections.  I wanted to begin at the Barre Falls because I'm intrigued by falls.

Here is the trail marker:

We began at the Barre Dam by 9:30am.  No one was there, it was so quiet and peaceful.

  After a short walk into the woods this was the sight that welcomed us:

A peaceful river flowing through the woods.  I'm glad there was little snow on the ground; although I have missed the snow this year.  I can imagine this river would be much fuller with a good amount of winter snow melt. 

Even though there wasn't any snow on the ground, there was ice in the river along the edges or near tree limbs in the water.

I was amazed that the river could be flowing quickly and still there's snow and ice forming. 

We crossed a bridge at one point.

Here was the sign on the bridge:

We walked for a good 4 and a half miles along the trail and then turned around to get back to the Barre Falls.  We climbed down a steep hill and set of stairs to see the Barre Falls and this view. 

I just love the icicles forming on the rock just above the water's edge. 

I learned a new game that day: Disc Golf. 

Here is a map for hole 4 showing you the path your flying disk should go and what par the hole is. 

This is what you are aiming to get the disks into. 

When I first saw the map on our way to begin the hike I thought it was showing a golf course.  Then when we returned back, a few hours later, people were playing around the falls.  It wasn't until I read the label on the metal hole that I learned about this sport.  By 1pm the Barre Falls had several teams of people around playing this game.  Barre Falls has an 18 hole course. 

Barre Falls is beautiful.  There is a lot of land to walk along.  They have picnic tables and a volleyball court.  I'm glad we discovered this place and had a peaceful hike together. 

Happy Valentine's Day to all.