Rock House

I last wrote about Rock House in November of 2014. On that day, we went for a long hike in the rain. This time around, it was a shorter hike, but the weather was much more pleasant. I started the day by pitching in at a town cleanup of a vacant lot, and spent several hours doing the kind of physical labor I went into engineering explicitly to avoid. So while we still wanted to hike, I wanted something a little less taxing. We picked Rock House because we know the trails well (map here), it was close, and we knew we could do a shorter loop and still get some fall scenery in. ...

The weather forecast today was for temperatures in the low 40s, wind, and rain. We briefly considered staying indoors, but we knew we’d regret it. So we added some layers and headed west on Route 9. Nearly all the way through West Brookfield, right before Ware, is the Rock House Reservation. This property, maintained by the Trustees of Reservations, is a favorite local natural retreat. We’ve been here a half-dozen times with our daughter, exploring and geocaching, but this time we went because we knew we could get a few miles of hiking in on familiar trails (map available here) while being sheltered from the worst of the weather by the trees. We’d also never come without her, and wanted to enjoy the scenery of the area at our own pace. ...