Source of the Sudbury

Just a week after skiing the Catamount Trail in fine snow conditions, here I am paddling my Wildfire upstream through quickwater on the upper Sudbury River. Good stuff.

This section can reportedly be very tough (to get through) in all but highwater, so after a couple of days of rain, I saw my chance. I paddled in about 3 miles up through flat and quick to access Cedar Swamp Pond in Westboro. The water level was outstanding and not once did I need to drag or lift over. This is a completely undeveloped and fairly inaccessible pond in an otherwise quite suburban part of the Commonwealth. I even scouted a portage route (about 1 mile) in directly to the pond while I was in there. The pond was about half cleared of ice, the river nice and high.

Wildlife highlights included a whitetail on the trail and an otter at the pond's outlet. Each time I had a chance to watch them for a while before they saw me. Add a red tail, great blue, many ducks and geese as well.

A very nice local paddle for me, to get the season rolling.

A companion Book to your recent river trip

"A Conscious Stillness" by Ann Zwinger and Edwin Way Teale, traces the Sudbury, Assebet and Concord rivers. The book is log of their canoe trips. The authors speak of the histories of the rivers as well as the fona and flora. Not a bad read for a rainy day.

Hugh.