Locating Farnsworth Headstone

A little chilly hiking this morning, 9 degrees when I passed the yellow gate. The plan today was to visit Wendell Farnsworth. His lone grave stone sits remotely on a quite ridge in the Quabbin woods. With research this past week, I was able to narrow the headstone location down to a general area. Reaching out to a fellow hiker that surfaced while doing my research, narrowed the search to a relatively small area. Once I located the house foundation, I split the area up into several quadrants and started doing circles. On the outer circle on the second sweep their stood Wendell’s headstone. The several evenings researching and the effort locating the headstone made for a very satisfying hike back to the truck Just one more reason to hike Quabbin ! Jim

I stopped in New Salem on the way hiking this morning; the sunrise was brilliant before the cloud cover moved in. Gate 15 is an easy hike, all downhill. Atherton Brook was babbling as I passed on the way to the reservoir. When I reached the intersection of 15-1, I went left to the shoreline. Then walked the shoreline south reaching the other cart road had I gone right at the 15-1 intersection. It always amazes me the animal tracks you see after a light snow. Coyote, deer, moose were easy finds this morning. The reservoir was calm. Walking the shoreline I did see one kingfisher, one lone goose and rounding one of the coves three canvas backs flew with my interruption. No loons where seen or heard today. This late in the season most loons have headed east and south. This was a short morning hike putting just over five miles on the ole’ hiking boots. The trek back up to the truck kept the blood flowing and was warm! Jim