Thewlis Woods, South Kingstown

Friday, August 21

Off of Route 1 in South Kingstown is Thewlis Woods, a South Kingstown Land Trust property. I drove down after work on Friday.

The trail is called The DAR Friendship trail or DAR Freedom trail, not sure which. The trail map available online says Freedom, but the sign says friendship. DAR refers to the Daughters of the American Revolution. The trail was created and maintained by Troop 1 Kingston. There is a .1 mile walk to a .7 mile loop. Not much of a trail, but I had other things I wanted to do before karate, so I didn't mind a short stroll.

I found the trail head fine. There wasn't much room to park. I walked the 500 or so feet to the main loop. When faced with a loop without a reason to go in a particular direction, I always go counter-clockwise. I don't know why. I turned right.

Straight away I was taken uncomfortably close to private houses. The blue blazes were few and somewhat indistinct. Having been created by Scouts as part of an Eagle project, the blazes were very nonstandard. They appeared to have been made using spray paint without any template. Also, they were a bit lower than you normally find. but the trail itself was clear and I trudged on fearlessly.

At some point I realized I hadn't seen a blaze in a while. There are a lot of paths that seem to have been made for cutting timber and I may have stepped onto one. The main path became occasionally overgrown. I checked my Blackberry for my location and headed the way I thought I should have. I got back onto the trail, this time going clockwise. That's when I discovered that the blazes were far more numerous and distinct in that direction. I passed by the access path back to my car, but continued on to see where I got off the trail. I found it in short order. Instead if turning back, I decided to continue and do the loop again, clockwise.

I walked back past many nice South Kingstown homes, noticing more and more "service" paths, for lack of a better term. Once again, despite my best effort, I was off the trail. I came to a familiar intersection, turned around, and hunted for the access path yet again. In doing so I walked by a rock on the trail with scat on it I had passed maybe three times. I again found the access path and headed back to my car. I had spent 50 minutes in the woods.

There was a pure stand of mature white pine, with the tell-tale denuded understory. Little other than greenbrier will grow. But much of the rest was oak, beech, and maple, will some pine. Greenbrier, fern, and a holly tree made up the understory. There was also a fair amount of poison ivy on the trail.

It's a nice walk but clearly needs a lot of maintenance. When checking my facts for this entry, I noticed these red letters:

NOTE: Thewlis Trail is temporarily unavailable for public access due to trail maintenance work underway at this site.

Was that new or had I simply missed it before? Astounding. I'll see about visiting again once it's done.