Long and Ell Ponds - Hopkinton RI - 11-29-09

[mtruman]

Poor Rhode Island gets just about no coverage on VFTT so I felt compelled to post this wonderful hike. To be fair, for those of us who love hiking in the mountains it's hard to find great hikes in RI or much of southern NE in general - but this is definitely our favorite in RI.

Long and Ell Ponds are jointly owned/protected by the Nature Conservancy and the RI Audubon Society. They are in the midst of a surprising number of trails on the RI/CT border that are part of the Yawgoog Trails. There is a wonderful site with trail maps, descriptions, history and much more here: http://www.mdc.net/~dbrier/yawgoog/trails/.

The main trails around Long and Ell ponds are part of the Narragansett Trail. There are three access points - one off North Rd (a dirt road with parking for 2-3 cars at the west end of Long Pond, a large parking area at the east end of long pond on Canonchett Rd and one on Stubtown Rd at the eastern terminus of the Naragansett Trail. We've used all three and used the Stubtown Rd access for the first time yesterday. We liked the extra mile or so each way that it provided on the Narragansett trail with some nice brook crossings and interesting (if not somewhat slippery) ledges.

The weather was beautiful for a late November day with sunshine and temps in the mid-50s. This trail is great in the spring when the Rhododendrons and Mountain Laurels that line nearly the entire route are blooming as well as in fall foliage season. It turned out to be really nice with all the leaves down now and the extra lake views along the way.

It's really hard to believe that this hike is in Rhode Island. The trail is a nearly endless series of ups and downs - some quite steep with minor scrambling involved - and very rocky (lots of large glacial bounders). It's a lot like the trails in Blue Hills Reservation south of Boston and is the only place I've hiked in RI where I could swear that I'm in northern NE (with a conspicuous lack of summits). For much of the hike the trail follows the south shore of Long Pond on the ledges high above. After dipping down to shore level in the bogs filled with Rhododendrons and back up to the ledges it finishes around the western end of the pond on a beautiful set of ledges that require a fun scramble. The ledges are covered with beautiful scrub pines and overlook the length of the lake. This is always our lunch/snack and soaking in the sun and views spot.

Not far past the ledges is the northwestern parking area and trail head. Continuing past this area you go across the border into CT and many other trail options around a bunch of other lakes and ponds in the area. We turned around at this point both due to time and the fact that there was a huge tree that had fallen right down the middle of the path. It turned out that it fell on Saturday in the middle of a hike that friends of ours were taking. It was standing when they passed it at the beginning and down when they returned. Happily nobody was around when it fell. The other nice part about this hike is that even though it's an out-and-back the character is totally different in each direction and we thoroughly enjoyed the second half return trip.

We were jealous yesterday knowing that many of our friends were out hiking in the snowy mountains in NH, but this made for a great substitute (at least for now). Hopefully we'll be in those snowy mountains soon...

Full album here: http://picasaweb.google.com/mtruman42/LongAndEllPondHike112909#

The Granite Sidewalk

This can't be Rhode Island

Pines on the Long Pond ledges

Long Pond from the ledges

Rhododendron lined paths

Glad nobody was on the path when this fell!

Reflections at the end of a great hike

 

[Billy]

That is a cool trail. Your pictures show three of my favorite spots: the crazily overgrown Rhododendron-lined path; the "this can't be Rhode Island" part of the trail (pretty good work-out to go up and down that section 4-5 times fast; and the view of Long Pond from the ledges (went there in winter once and there was a single crack down the center of the entire length of the pond---looked like an earthquake hit the frozen pond). Man that trailhead is hard to find though.
Another cool spot in RI that doesn't seem like RI: "the chasm" about 3 miles or so into the Beach Pond trail (north side of 165).

Cool TR.

 

[mtruman]

Billy - Definitely going to have to get back there this winter. We were discussing how nice it would be to snowshoe in there someday when we were hiking Sunday. There's a nice 8-9 mile loop above Beach Pond that is at the top of our list for "hikes close to home" which probably has the section you described on it. Looking forward to it even more now.

 

[bjc]

Nice report Mark.

Although I haven't hiked it in several years, that is one of my favorite RI hikes. I'll have to get back there soon, thanks for sharing.

 

[Jimmy Legs and Little D]

Mark,
What a unique idea! It is refreshing to see a report as to what VFFT members are hiking outside of the White Mountains and New England area. I can't recall ever seeing a report from RI - you may be the first and have set a precident.

Donna

 

[mtruman]

You're right Donna - I think I ventured into uncommon territory here (no pun intended). When I first discovered VFTT I was happy to see that there were trail condition sections for all the NE states. I quickly found out that many of them (RI in particular) don't get much use. To be honest of course if we had the option of just hiking in the NH/ME/VT mountains all the time that's of course where we'd be. For those of us that aren't close enough for that though I'm sure we all have our stash of "close to home" hikes and we could all probably use more of them. Sunday was one of those days that it would have been an absolute crime not to hike somewhere and this one fit perfectly.

VFTT has become my first resource to go to for ideas for new places to hike up north, trail information and trip planning. I also just love reading the TRs, seeing the pictures and following everyone's journeys. It would be great if more of the members in southern NE posted more (and more frequent) trail conditions and trip reports so that those of us who can't be where we'd most love to be every weekend can find more new hikes that give us the chance to get out more often. Hopefully that can tide me over till retirement when we can head north for good...

Edit: after posting this response and going back to look at today's TR section I see that there are several current threads from southern NE (CT, MA) hikes and some other outside-of-NE-local-hikes. Great!

 

[forestgnome]

Very nice! It's nice to see those images. I used to hike there often. The combo of giant rhododendron and boulders is beautiful. It was a tradition to hike there when the rhodos were in bloom.

happy trails