Today I investigated some Outlanding locations I had reported recently, near Mt. Watatic. Unfortunately, the gate at the entrance to the first trail was closed, as you can see.
I wasn’t able to find the second location mentioned in my post – but I did find some dirt roads, and in general that entire area is full of twisting, fun roads. So, it was good.
On my way back, I investigated another spot on Rindge Road that I had been down recently. It’s a good trail – part of it is even paved – and easy to find. On Rindge road, just look for a small concrete column on the right side of the road painted in florescent orange – that’s the trail. Along the way there is a tough technical challenge – a section of the road has washed out, creating a steep, deep “gully”. The first time I went up there, it wasn’t that bad and I was able to go over it relatively easily. This time it was much worse, and I had to take a careful track around the edge of the crack, to avoid scraping the bottom of the Keithmobile.
After that section was passed, there’s a fork in the trail. Going right takes you back to paved roads; going left takes you down a narrow but fairly easy trail… easy, that is, until you get to this [Edit: sorry for the blurry picture]:
Needless to say I didn’t go through this. That mud is too deep for the Keithmobile, with it’s relatively narrow tires. Even a jeep or jacked up truck might hesitate to go through that muck – although if you were going fast enough you might make it through. Still, mud is dangerous for any vehicle – I’ve seen even the best off-road vehicles get stuck in mud – and so I didn’t risk it. Turning around on the trail was a challenge, but I’ve learned my lessons well – I keep my eyes open along trails for places to turn around (without scraping the paint). So this wasn’t so bad; a 4-point turn on a dirt trail and I was on my way out.
[Edit: Although it doesn’t look bad in the picture, that mudhole is bigger than it looks. And the ground all around is soft and mushy – plus, I checked it out and the hole is quite deep, more than just a few inches anyway – and that’s too deep, IMHO.]
Anyway, that’s all for today’s Scoutlanding report. Happy trails!
