Turtles on top of turtles

I took a 46-mile ride last weekend: up the Minuteman to Bedford, west along the (muddy and rutted) Reformatory Branch Trail to Concord, and back to the Minuteman along the historical Battle Road [map]. This is similar to a "Lexington Loop" I did a while ago, but with two new detours: I circled Fresh Pond — which I found to be unexpectedly green and secluded and woodsy, bursting with wildflowers — on my way to the foot of the Minuteman at Alewife, and I jogged north from the Reformatory Branch Trail to the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge.

Not to be confused with Arlington's Great Meadows, which is just off the Minuteman and which I hiked around in on my way to Andover for last year's camping trip, the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge is a mile-long ellipse of wetlands, bisected by a dike topped by a crushed gravel trail. It was serene, beautiful, soothing — a real gem, which I'd seen many times on the map but never given much notice to. There's a wooden viewing platform in the middle of the Dike Trail, hung out over the lilypads, and since you're in the middle of a honking great marsh there's no traffic, or human noises of any kind, to be heard. I glimpsed one turtle scooting away under the water, and then suddenly there was life everywhere — another nine (nine!) painted turtles trying to climb on top of each other, a huge chartreuse bullfrog that splopped onto a lilypad right under my nose, great blue herons soaring through the air, egrets high-stepping through the tall grasses, turkey buzzards, dragonflies, a muskrat...and, amazingly, not a single mosquito.

I stayed a bit longer than I should have, in part because a helpful park-goer informed me that there's no biking on the Dike Trail, so I had to walk my bike back. This meant I had to book it back to Harvard Square in time to cram my face full of pizza and see Machete; the Battle Road got short shrift. But I'm so glad I found this oasis, 18 miles from my doorstep, and I recommend it to any Bostonian who likes the green. (Caveat: If you decide to bike there, the west half of the Reformatory Branch Trail, after Old Bedford Rd., is hard to spot. Look behind the stretch of highway guard rail.)

( Cut for frogs and turtles! )

More pix on Flickr.