August 24, 2008
As I've mentioned before, my oldest boy is in Boy Scouts. I had been a cub scout volunteer for several years, so helping the troop seemed natural. Mostly I help out by going on overnights and attending committee meetings, but what I look forward to doing is taking the boys out on a nature hike.
Earlier I had suggested we work towards the hiking merit badge. This went over well with most of the boys. The requirements include five 10-mile hikes and one 20-mile hike. We've hiked around Yawgoog pond, around the Blue Hills, and on the cliff walk. This latest hike, suggested by another parent, was the Vin Gormley trail in Burlingame State Park.
My boy and a tenderfoot needed some map and compass skills for rank advancement, so I stopped by the Map Center in Providence. Great Swamp Press, publishers of the definitive book of the North South trail, produces wonderfully high quality topographic maps of many natural areas in Rhode Island. I picked up Burlingame/Carolina and Pachaug forest.
The Vin Gormley trail is a little over eight miles, so I added a bit around the halfway point to bring it to ten. The hike circles Watchaug Pond. We head off counter-clockwise on the advice of the parent who suggested the hike. His reasoning was it's better to get the mile and a half of road travel out of the way at the start rather than the end when the boys were tired. I concurred.
Vin Gormley is an easy trail. Well marked with very little vertical. The group essentially splits in two: the older boys race ahead and the younger two straggle. We pause every now and again to take a closer look at nature. Many frogs and toads. A small black snake. A monarch butterfly Caterpillar. Oak wasp gall. Our tenderfoot had never been on a nature hike before. His trekking poles were used to smash mushrooms and swat at dragonflies, but he took away something valuable from the hike. If nothing else, he learned that he could do it.
There is a small covered bridge crossing a stream. I am told that it was at the annual Flower and garden show in Providence one year and was donated. It was helicoptered in. We stopped for lunch.
The hike took about six hours. Back at Burlingame Picnic Area, most of the troop goes for a swim. Around five we pack up and head North.
