Bay Circuit Trail - Ch. 5 to Chronicle (Oct. 29)

Channel 5 Boston's "Chronicle" show will profile the Bay Circuit Trail a week from tonight. To quote from their website:

Looking for some new places to meet an old friend, walk the dog, or just chill? We know just where to go, spots full of grand vistas, fall color, and our favorite: weird stuff in the woods. And the best thing: we're not talking northern New England; it's all within 25 miles of Boston. Tonight, Anthony Everett gets out on the Bay Circuit Trail, a 200 mile recreational resource that winds from the North Shore to the South.

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Thanks for posting this, Amicus. I put it on the calendar.

Your post prompted me to take a look at the BCT website. It's very detailed, great site. My husband and I have hiked or snowshoed so many of the properties the trail passes through - Ward Reservation, Harald Parker, Bradley Palmer, etc.

What are your favorite sections? Looking forward to the show!

gram said:

Your post prompted me to take a look at the BCT website. It's very detailed, great site.

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I agree. Keep watching, and I think you'll see it getting even better in a few months.

gram said:

What are your favorite sections? Looking forward to the show!

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I could truthfully reply, "the last section I've hiked is always my favorite," but that sounds like a cop-out, so I'll mention just a few of my favorite hikes:

- Newbury: Old Town Hill and the Spencer-Pierce-Little Farm;

- Andover: Mary French Reservation (one of many AVIS gems);

- Lowell: the snowy banks of the Merrimack, Kerouac Park and the Boott Cotton Mill;

- Walden Pond;

- Minuteman National Historic Park;

- Spur trail to No. Easton, including the Ames Shovel Works (where the majority of the world's shovels were made in the latter 19th Century) and a half-dozen H. H. Richardson Romanesque masterpieces;

- Bay Farm, on Kingston Bay.

Ask me tomorrow and I'll give you 7 different answers. Work goes on filling in the last few gaps, by the way.

I'm also going to try to catch this. I've only done about 20-25 miles of the trail so far, but it's been great. It's a perfect choice when i want to get a long hike with good amount of scenic variety but I don't have 5 hours to drive back and forth from the Whites.

Amicus said:

Andover: Mary French Reservation (one of many AVIS gems);

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I was very impressed by the AVIS properties. I had no idea they even had so many properties.

They did a great job, I thought, effectively squeezing a very eclectic 200-mile Trail into 30 minutes, less commercials. They touched on a number of my favorite spots, noted above, and a few others I could have mentioned, such as Ford's Folly in Sudbury and Brister's Hill in Concord (the "Thoreau Stones"). Best of all, they gave due credit to Al French, who made the BCT happen. (I never knew Hockomock Swamp was said to be haunted, however. That short segment seemed a bit thin.)

I'm sorry I didn't this bump this thread earlier today, to remind people. The Chronicle website page includes related websites and some viewer comments, but not an archived "print" you can view. I'm new to this show and website and don't know if they will post the show itself at some point.

For those of you who missed this and are curious what the BCT looks like, the Chronicle website added these video links earlier today. They have divided it into four segments. I don't know how long they leave these things up.

Just watched the videos - thanks for posting the link. I'm definitely more excited now to do more sections of the trail.