High Water Beneath Bridges Old And New

 

This past week was one for enjoying the bounty of water from the previous week's rainstorms.  The resulting high water levels made access to brooks such as Nashoba and Fort Pond much easier than usual.  The above photo was taken on Wednesday at the confluence of the two brooks and just downstream of the new bridge being built to carry the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail up and over Nashoba Brook and Route 2.  The new bridge is being built at the spot where two railroads once crossed the brook side by side...the New Haven Railroad's Framingham to Lowell line and the Acton, Nashua, and Boston Railroad.  This 1950 map found on the UNH Dimond Library/Wayback Machine archive shows the busy location in Concord, MA...

(X shows my launch/takeout and the small arrows my brook turnaround points. The larger arrow shows the new bridge's location).

The rail trail bridge project is moving right along as this photo shows...

...and Route 2 in the distance seems dwarfed by the project.

Paddled both brooks...the Nashoba up to Teamworks, and then Fort Pond Brook up about 0.65 miles to where it continues on in a southwesterly direction...

...a 50' high ridge to it's east and a 20' high plateau to the west.  

Encountered my first spaceship near the plateau's base...

It was snagged in a low-hanging tree branch at the water's edge.  No sign of William Shatner.

Returning to the confluence I followed Nashoba Brook back to the beaver dam where my boat and I slid down it and back into Warner's Pond...

The day before, on Tuesday, I paddled the Sudbury River in Wayland up to the Heard Pond area where access to the pond from the river was also easier than usual...

  Further upriver these power lines...

...crossing the river had me thinking about the electricity Massachusetts hopes to bring down from Quebec Hydro.  Plans for bringing the lines through western Maine are meeting with opposition.

A beaver lodge near the Greenways...

 

Wrapped up the week with a Friday morning paddle on the Assabet River from Hudson up to just below Route 290 in Marlborough.  About a mile up from Chapin Street the first obstacle is a spot where there's four passages to choose from. Usually due to fallen trees only one is passable.  On previous occasions I wondered if there was once some kind of a structure or causeway here.  In looking at old maps of the area and noting the adjacent road is named "Four Bridges Road", I was able to find the bridge was last shown on this 1923 topo map (also found at the UNH Dimond Library/Wayback Machine archive)...

According to a June 2006 Hudson Reconnaissance Report/Freedom's Way Landscape Inventory the Four Bridges Ruins are "located at the end of Four Bridges Road just east of where Route 495 crosses the Assabet River.  Bridge was first bridge crossing of the Assabet River in Hudson. Some stone foundations of the bridge remain."

This photo shows the most northerly passage between the old stone foundations...

Just a short distance away a busy Route 495 carries many a trailer truck across the river...

...and a hornet's nest hangs above the water...

 

Further upriver a good flowing North Brook entered the river in Berlin...

Back on the Assabet I got this close to Route 290 where a fallen tree blocked my way...

The best fall foliage of the week, though somewhat muted, was on this small island in Warner's Pond...

Most vegetation has turned in for the winter except for these winterberry plants loaded with red berries seen in several spots along the Assabet...

Seeing the winterberry helped to alleviate the chilling effect of seeing this riverside frost...

...for I know what lies ahead.

Trash for the week:

Tuesday from the Sudbury River...

Wednesday from Nashoba and Fort Pond brooks which included a plastic bag containing 18 glass "nip" bottles...

Friday from the Assabet River where the least trash was encountered...