Jay H
09-26-2010, 03:48 PM
Fastest Known Time, Silliest Local Hike, Solo, Green, Kennedy Park in One Day
I woke up, stumbled out of bed and grabbed my gear and walked out the back door and over to Kennedy Park today to hike the first annual solo unsupported green Kennedy Park in One Day redline dayhike. To be green, I simply walked the 1/3 mileish to the Aspinwall trailhead to Kennedy Park and took a photo of the plaque there for the time. To satisfy the thread title, I was alone and did not use any carbon to get to the trailhead and started my hike around 7:30 at the picture of the kennedy park plaque. I had a vague plan on how to hit the park with minimal out and backs but thought mostly that I would just wing it and plan as I go along. I started the hike on aspinwall road by the big water tank and headed to redline a bit of the small spur trails off Rt 7A and then i figured I'd head out towards the gazebo and do a somewhat counterclockwise loop of the park, hitting all the trails that I needed to and making basically three passes of the park as it runs north-south. Basically the plan was to head north along the eastern part of the path but NOT on the Bridal trail as I would save that for my return. Then I'd hit the north and western sections of which all was entirely new to me. After that I would head down the western side, hitting the Aspinwall's hotel grounds and picking up the trails around the western border. After that I would head up north via the main Coakley trail towards the Lookout gazebo and then hit all the northern section of trails I missed on the first round. Then I'd simply head over to the Arcadian Shop, out and back to the trail that leads to/from the trailhead parking on W. Dugway and then eventually go back via the Bridal path and back to the start.
Not many people are in the park at 7:30am and I pretty much have the park to myself except for a couple of morning trail joggers and a solo MTB person. My navigating is going well except for a missing sign on the Kirchner/Coakley trail intersection where I hike to the Pondside trail and wonder, "hey, I missed a trail junction"... And also there needs to be an update to the map as the section called Balanced Rock leads to a dead end by the Glade trail that is marked Private Property on the map. (see map). That trail is missing a trail name sign at the pondside trail junction yet the signs for the "most difficult" and "caution" signs are still on and the trail is obviously disused cause of the blowdown. Eventually you descend a very steep gully til you run into a orange fencing and no where to go.. I guess that's why the trailsign marker is missing. Oh well, back up the steep hill and over dead trees.
Same story via Slippery Rock trail, that dead ends into an orange fence and private property. However, the under Mtn trail is not a dead end and you can actually just get to the Brook trail to the Turkey trail back to the Under Mtn Trail which leads to Cliffwood/under mtn road and a trailhead.
I saw a sign for the "Glade" trail but the trail was completely overgrown or hidden enough that I couldn't redline that even though the map seems to show a circular loop trail, much like the Umbrella Hill or Stonehenge trail.
In any case, I did every trail that is numbered on the map. I did not redline the ATT buried line as it is not numbered although I did take the ATT line down from the gazebo just cause it was shorter than the lookout trail which I did in the first pass.
Start time: 7:46:15 from my camera's JPEG info (corrected my camera time which was 1 hour off)
End Time: 13:25:35 for a total hike time of
5:39:20
I hiked it though I did jog down some of the downhills and I also spent some time at the Arcadian shop chatting to the folks there about banff and oggling the other hikers in the store.
http://picasaweb.google.com/cycleslugyahoo/20100926KPOD
Map of Kennedy Park:
http://www.townoflenox.com/public_documents/lenoxma_parkland/Kennedy_Park2.pdf
Jay
I woke up, stumbled out of bed and grabbed my gear and walked out the back door and over to Kennedy Park today to hike the first annual solo unsupported green Kennedy Park in One Day redline dayhike. To be green, I simply walked the 1/3 mileish to the Aspinwall trailhead to Kennedy Park and took a photo of the plaque there for the time. To satisfy the thread title, I was alone and did not use any carbon to get to the trailhead and started my hike around 7:30 at the picture of the kennedy park plaque. I had a vague plan on how to hit the park with minimal out and backs but thought mostly that I would just wing it and plan as I go along. I started the hike on aspinwall road by the big water tank and headed to redline a bit of the small spur trails off Rt 7A and then i figured I'd head out towards the gazebo and do a somewhat counterclockwise loop of the park, hitting all the trails that I needed to and making basically three passes of the park as it runs north-south. Basically the plan was to head north along the eastern part of the path but NOT on the Bridal trail as I would save that for my return. Then I'd hit the north and western sections of which all was entirely new to me. After that I would head down the western side, hitting the Aspinwall's hotel grounds and picking up the trails around the western border. After that I would head up north via the main Coakley trail towards the Lookout gazebo and then hit all the northern section of trails I missed on the first round. Then I'd simply head over to the Arcadian Shop, out and back to the trail that leads to/from the trailhead parking on W. Dugway and then eventually go back via the Bridal path and back to the start.
Not many people are in the park at 7:30am and I pretty much have the park to myself except for a couple of morning trail joggers and a solo MTB person. My navigating is going well except for a missing sign on the Kirchner/Coakley trail intersection where I hike to the Pondside trail and wonder, "hey, I missed a trail junction"... And also there needs to be an update to the map as the section called Balanced Rock leads to a dead end by the Glade trail that is marked Private Property on the map. (see map). That trail is missing a trail name sign at the pondside trail junction yet the signs for the "most difficult" and "caution" signs are still on and the trail is obviously disused cause of the blowdown. Eventually you descend a very steep gully til you run into a orange fencing and no where to go.. I guess that's why the trailsign marker is missing. Oh well, back up the steep hill and over dead trees.
Same story via Slippery Rock trail, that dead ends into an orange fence and private property. However, the under Mtn trail is not a dead end and you can actually just get to the Brook trail to the Turkey trail back to the Under Mtn Trail which leads to Cliffwood/under mtn road and a trailhead.
I saw a sign for the "Glade" trail but the trail was completely overgrown or hidden enough that I couldn't redline that even though the map seems to show a circular loop trail, much like the Umbrella Hill or Stonehenge trail.
In any case, I did every trail that is numbered on the map. I did not redline the ATT buried line as it is not numbered although I did take the ATT line down from the gazebo just cause it was shorter than the lookout trail which I did in the first pass.
Start time: 7:46:15 from my camera's JPEG info (corrected my camera time which was 1 hour off)
End Time: 13:25:35 for a total hike time of
5:39:20
I hiked it though I did jog down some of the downhills and I also spent some time at the Arcadian shop chatting to the folks there about banff and oggling the other hikers in the store.
http://picasaweb.google.com/cycleslugyahoo/20100926KPOD
Map of Kennedy Park:
http://www.townoflenox.com/public_documents/lenoxma_parkland/Kennedy_Park2.pdf
Jay