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Friends' Loop LbNA #48995

Owner:Adoptable
Plant date:Jul 18, 2009
Location:
City:Ashby
County:Middlesex
State:Massachusetts
Boxes:1
Planted by:JoLoMo
Found by: JoLoMo
Last found:Oct 14, 2013
Status:FFFFFOa
Last edited:Jul 18, 2009
Damon Pond is in Willard Brook State Forest, on Route 119 in Ashby.

Stop in at the Damon Pond office and pick up a trail map, before you start (and pay for your parking). From the upper end of the parking lot, cross the road and find the trailhead for the Friends' Trail and Friend's Loop. (Warning: the other end of the Friends' Loop is right next to this: make sure you start off on the uphill of the two trails, with the large metal gate blocking the trail from vehicles.)

Follow the yellow and orange diamond-shaped trail markers (update, October 2013: most of the diamond-shaped trail markers have been removed, and replaced with rectangular paint marks. Lo thinks the orange paint looks more red; Mo disagrees; women and men see colors differently, especially in the red part of the spectrum). After about 10-20
minutes of walking (at our pace; it took 20 minutes last year with a healthy 8-year-old, then 10 minutes this year), you'll come to a boarded up wooden building. There's open space under the right-hand side of the building; on the left-hand side of this open space, the box is hidden under the building, behind some rocks. [This land was private property until the state acquired it near the end of the 20th century. The building was formerly a private building].

Please carefully reseal the plastic bags inside the box; the logbook is showing some signs of water leakage.

After stamping in (and securely sealing and rehiding the box), you can retrace your steps to the parking area, or continue around the Friends' Loop (orange markers), or hike all the way to Pearl Hill on the Friends' Trail (yellow markers). We haven't done the Friends' Trail. It took us about 2 hours from here to complete the Friends' Loop, including some rest stops. Make sure you have good walking shoes or boots: a staff and a compass might also be useful: there are no real difficult spots, but there's some easy climbing over rocky areas, and the trail is well-enough marked that it's difficult to get lost.