10/3/13 Perch Pond

Another beautiful sunny day with temperatures in the upper 60's to lower 70's.  These were more new trails that we learned about from the university forestry man. We decide to start on the Spruce Trail , take that to the pond, and then follow the trail along the pond. We would play it by ear from there.

This is the marker for the trail head- an old road with a chain blocking any vehicles.

The first part is a wide grassy mowed old road but had some nice color along the side.

The trail then enters the woods and the first part was a bit wet but they had done good work with bog bridges.

When it seemed we must be very near the pond we discovered we had missed a turn or made a wrong turn and were going in the wrong direction. We tried various trails and kept finding ourselves on wrong trails- primarily the bike trails. We had the forest service map and also a map made by the bikers who are constructing a network of trails. They did not seem to always coincide and the bikers  have done a lot of flagging ( some on unfinished trails) which made it seem as there were trails everywhere. We eventually came to the Shore Path but at the other end of it. The pond is quite large and there was some nice color across the pond.

We followed the Shore Trail  to it's end where it seemed we would be able to get on the Spruce Trail and head back. Once again we were wrong and ended up on several unintended bike trails. Every time we turned around Kelley looked at me as if to say, "you don't know where you are going do you?" Eventually we again found the correct trail and made it back to our car. Not our best hike as it became frustrating trying to sort out the trails but it was a beautiful day and we were out in it.  3  1/4 hours