Sunday, July 25, 2010

Mt. Misery

Today Bug and I met up with Blue and Iris for a hike at Mt. Misery in Lincoln, MA.


What was really nice about Mt. Misery is that it is very dog friendly and has explicit instructions about where dogs are allowed off-leash and where they are required to be on-leash and the behavior expected of owners (i.e. pick up the poop , off-leash trails, etc.).


For the most part people followed the rules. The dogs that we did meet had superb dog-dog skills. It was great to have such positive experiences with dogs both on and off-leash. Most of the times you run into dogs in the woods the story is less positive and tends to start with someone hollering, "He's really friendly" as the dog charges up to you with the owner(s) following by at least 50'. It was a pleasure, and somewhat surprising, to have so many positive encounters.

We hiked for a little over an hour and both dogs were pretty beat. The majority of the trails are in pretty dense woods so it felt cooler. There is one trail that goes into a field and essentially doesn't go anywhere - we found that out the hard way. The upside of the dead end into the field was they actually had copies of the map on the other side of the field!

There were many ponds and lots of water. I had to take a picture of the green slime coating quite a few of the ponds. It was so vibrantly colored.


Pups are allowed to swim at designated areas and we did let our guy and gal into a running stream near a beaver dam. They both enjoyed wading for a few moments to try and cool off. While it was cooler in the woods the humidity is pretty high today and the dogs were definitely feeling the heat.

While there were probably 15 cars (at least) in the parking area, we barely saw anyone in the woods. We didn't do all of the trails and I am looking forward to going back another time. Blue and I talked about getting together again to take our dogs for a hike at a different location. It is a great opportunity to discover new hiking spots as we tried to meet mid-way between our houses (she is in in northern MA and I am in southern MA).

My corgi is now snoozing at my feet. There is little better than a tired dog!

6 comments:

Sara said...

I thought mt. Misery was a joke at first...that's the real name?

Looks like a fun time.

Kathy Mocharnuk said...

Wow, that is some serious green slime! That is neat to have everything so clear for the dog and a nice group of people that must have been hking.

Diana said...

That is some green slime. Its so hot here right now there is no way to go hike. You're so lucky. Im glad it was such a positive adventure. Diana

Dawn said...

Looked like a lot of fun!

Holly said...

What a nice day you had!

Blue said...

I had a great time on the hike! It was fun to see you an Bug.

I love the red dog's face in the green slime photo. She's such a little diva :)