You Are Here: Walter Newton Natural Area

Last weekend was my first time back on a mountain with snow, this weekend was my first time back on snowshoes in several years. I was actually surprised how quickly I became comfortable walking in them again, I had thought I might be a bit clumsy. I opted to head north as we had a really big snowstorm this week, but the north actually received far less snow than the south of the state. I figured I'd possibly be breaking trail, and didn't really feel like doing that in 2-3 feet! I made the right choice as the Walter Newton Natural Area in Plymouth only received about a foot of snow, and I only had to break trail for about half of my hike. I parked on Cummings Hill Road where an area had been plowed for parking which fit 4 cars comfortably. I was first one there around 9:15am, and the lot was full when I returned. It was a balmy 2°F when I started, but I had enough layers that I never felt cold at all. I headed down the Ruth Walter Trail which was already packed down. I really enjoyed being out in the woods, surrounded by all that new fluffy snow. I had a rough idea in my head of what I wanted to do, and when I reached the intersection of Henry's Trail, I found it had not been broken out yet. I hesitated.. do I go for it, or stick to the shorter loop that was already broken out. I decided to head to the next intersection, Rainbow Falls Trail and do a loop from there. At most, that would be about 1.1 miles of breaking trail. Once at the Rainbow Falls Trail, I was pleasantly surprised to see that trail had been broken out before me. So I started up, noticing the tracks appeared to be cross country ski tracks. At the top of a small incline, those tracks stopped. The person skiing had obviously tired of breaking trail and turned around, or just wanted to get a little up before skiing back down. I hesitated again, do I keep going or turn around as this person had? I have been on trail breaking hikes before, but always as the caboose, never by myself. My heart tends to beat my head out in these arguments, and onwards I went. I tried to follow blaze to blaze as best I could. It was a weird feeling not really knowing if I was actually on the correct trail or what was going to be underfoot.. I kept thinking I would take a step and end up sinking waist deep or more into a hole! Thankfully that never happened and I made it very slowly up, up, up the Rainbow Falls Trail. In retrospect, it wasn't a huge incline, but it sure felt like it at the time. I just kept taking breaks and kept the next blaze in sight. Eventually I ended up intersecting some official cross country ski trails, and these had been broken out, so for the remainder of the trail up I had some guidance and less work to do. I reached the parking area on Texas Hill Road and the top of Henry's Trail, which, much like the bottom of it, was not broken out. Since I had to get down either way, I headed down the unbroken trail. This time a little more energetically as it was down, rather than up all the way. A couple times I got caught off trail following wayward xc ski tracks. Someone had sort of followed the xc trail and sort of not, and I would follow them for a bit before realizing I was a little off the hiking trail. Thankfully never too far and I corrected quickly and easily. I was just so happy to reach the Ruth Walter Trail again knowing the rest of the way would already be packed down. I doubled back the short section I had done earlier, reaching Rainbow Falls, which not surprisingly were completely frozen and headed down the Newton Trail back to my car. It was a bluebird day and I only passed 1 other hiker out with his dog.

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(pictures uploaded in reverse order)