Today I felt priviledged to spend my late morning and early afternoon paddling the waters of the Assabet River between Ben Smith's Dam in Maynard to Gleasondale Dam in Stow. As a trash patrol it was pretty much a bust for this 5.3-mile section of river yielded only 17 pieces of trash and 6 of those were submerged. A tip of my hat to those responsible for keeping such a long stretch of river so free of trash!
After launching at Icehouse Landing near the Maynard DPW yard, I headed upriver passing under the White Pond Road and Sudbury Road bridges. For much of the trip, the Assabet River Rail Trail ran parallel to the river's course. Originally, this railbed carried the rails and trains of the Boston & Maine Railroad between South Acton and Marlboro. The Maynard to Hudson section was abandoned in 1941. At the two locations where the railroad crossed over the river, the bridges are long gone.
Near where the outlet from Lake Boone enters the river, I came upon this yellow flag in bloom...
Red-winged blackbirds were everywhere and some stayed quite close to their nest sites...
I paddled past several duck blinds though none were manned today. Painted turtles were sunning themselves atop nearly every rock or log and their much larger cousins, the snappers, lurked in the shallows. In one very winding and narrow stretch I came upon 3 small musquashes playing near the entrance to their cozy home...
Reaching Gleasondale I passed under the Route 62 bridge and paddled alongside the mill building towards the dam...
Pushing upriver just a little further allowed me this glimpse of the dam structure...
This marked the end of the road, so to speak, and a good spot to turnaround and begin the trip back to Maynard.
While there were no ultralight aircraft taking-off or landing at the small airfield in Stow as I passed by, I did spot this great blue heron getting itself airborne...
Other wildlife spotted today were mute swans, cardinals, a baltimore oriole, an eastern kingbird, a turkey vulture, and a couple of ducks. Oddly, there were no Canada geese seen today.
Arriving back at Icehouse Landing, it didn't take long to unload today's modest trash haul...
My count for the day was 17 pieces of trash. Of these, 9 were recyclable (6 redeemable) and 8 were misc. rubbish such as styrofoam, plastic etc. My YTD total stands at 1963.
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