Compared to Long Island, north-central Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire offer plentiful opportunities for mountain biking, hiking as well as geocaching. One of those opportunities is the the Mason Rail Trail, which starts at the MA/NH border and continues north before turning west. We were eager to take an easy walk in a fairly secluded place, while doing some geocaching and giving Curie a chance to run around. Curie is a shitzu/poodle mix that we were dog-sitting that particular weekend.
Curie (Shitzu-poodle mix)
The trail itself is extremely easy to walk on – not surprisingly as you are walking on what used to be (still is) a railroad grade. Aside from seclusion and the 9 or so geocaches, the trial doesn’t offer much. By all means it is a nice walk, but that is it. In my books this does not qualify as hiking. Well, there are some nice rock outcrops, if such things interest you. With the current cache layout, we chose to park at the intersection of the trail with Depot road and continue south, then come back and walk north. The southern part currently offers more geocaches than the northern part but that may change in the future. The GPS track with cache locations (squares) is shown below:
The trail is also used for horse riding and mountain biking and we definitely intend to return with our bikes and explore the northern parts as well as other rail trails in the area.
The gate on the north side of Depot Road.
Jackson Road
The bridge over Jackson Road
Mysterious atmosphere of the trail
Looking down the trail
Curie exploring
The trail to the north of the Depot road
It seems to be a great place for walking or biking ! Nice !