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A pond with boulders next to Boulder Path in the Lynn Woods Reservation
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The
Lynn Woods Reservation is the second largest municipal park in the
greater Boston area. It makes up a fifth of the area (about 2,200 acres) of the
City of Lynn north of Boston. The park is roughly divided into equally sized areas north and south of the
Walden Pond reservoir. Both sides are crisscrossed by multiple trails along which you can explore points of historical and geological interest. The handout map contains the following administrative information:
Founded in 1881, Lynn Woods Reservation, is a 2,200-acre municipal forest park located in Lynn, Massachusetts. The City of Lynn's Department of Public Works, Park Commission, and Lynn Water & Sewer Commission share jurisdiction and management of Lynn Woods Reservation. The park encompasses nearly one-fifth of the entire land area of the city and represents a significant natural, watershed, and public recreational resource in eastern Massachusetts.
Beyond dog walking and hiking, the recreational activities in the park include mountain biking and bouldering. Early this fall, I hiked from the Pennybrook Road Entrance to the Balanced Boulder on mostly single-track trails including Jackson Path, Boulder Path, Richardson Pathway, Comel Path and Overlook Trail. I found this to be an apt sequence of trails alongside which one can get an impressive overview of the park's rocks, boulders and crags.
Starting at the Pennybrook Road Entrance, it just takes a short walk on Jackson Path to get to Dungeon Rock and nearby Union Rock.
Continuing northwest on
Dungeon Road and soon turning right on
Cooke Road leads to the south-end
Boulder Path junction. The shallow pond shown in the top picture is on the left side of Boulder Path.
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Boulder Path
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After about half a mile this path meets Cooke Road again. A very short climb took me to the
Stone Tower on top of
Burrill Hill. Here, the
Richardson Pathway intersects with Cooke Road. The
Walden Pond reservoir is located north of Burrill Hill. To get around the southeast tip of the reservoir, I hiked Richardson Pathway downhill (east of the Stone Tower), turned left at its junction with
Comel Path and shortly, at the end of this path, right on
Great Woods Road.
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Boulder assembly next to Richardson Pathway
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At the reservoir tip, I turned left on
Ox Pasture Road, which I followed for half a mile along the lake to the point where the
Overlook Trail splits off to the left. This trail continues over rocky terrain, still relatively close to Walden Pond, but which often was not visible through the forest or intersecting rock formations. Around
Overlook Crag I tried different rock plateaus for varying, but never complete views of the extending body of water.
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Overlook Crag: view of parts of Walden Pond
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Northwest of Overlook Crag, the trail winds slightly away from the reservoir, continuing to the
Great Frog Boulder and the
Balanced Boulder.
References and more to explore
[1] Map: Lynn Woods Reservation. URL: http://www.cityoflynnoecd.net/documents/resource/maps/Lynn_Woods_2009-01-20.pdf. Note: this map is also provided at certain Lynn Woods trailheads such as the Pennybrook Road Entrance.
[2] Welcome to the Lynn Woods Reservation. City of Lynn. URL: http://www.lynnma.gov/departments/lynnwoods.shtml.
[3] Kiley Jacques. A Visit to Lynn Woods Reservation. Northshore Magazine. May 2, 2016. URL: https://www.nshoremag.com/faces-places/a-visit-to-lynn-woods-reservation/.
[4] Peyton Moreno. The Role of Friends of Lynn Woods. Friends of Lynn Woods. November 2, 2020. URL: http://www.lynnwoods.org/.
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Unnamed boulder next to Overlook Trail
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