Lynn Woods Reservation is the second largest municipal park in the greater Boston area, and includes over 2,200 acres of forest reserve. Me and Nicole headed there early on Saturday afternoon and parked at the Pennybrook road entrance, snagged a trail map from a container under the park sign, which amazingly had maps in it and not just trash and gum, and headed off down Jackson path. The map can be found here. The trail was very well maintained and winded through pretty thick forest as we made our way up to dungeon rock. Dungeon rock, as we would learn has a large man made cave going down 135ft into the side of the hill it sits on top of. After letting a semi-shit bag family guide their Mohawk rocking son through the cave, we headed in to check it out. I'll admit I was a complete chicken, but Nicole made me go all the way to the end of the cave which was quite a bit farther than I had expected and since we only had smartphone flashlight apps, pretty damn dark. Here is an artists rendition of our decent into the cave, and as Nicole stated I'm the woman getting helped down the stairs. Whatever.
After coming back out of the cave, and watching a group of 20s something dudes who tried to scare us while we were in the cave, fail at making it more than 30 ft in we headed off down the trail.
We passed by Breed's Pond and saw a small island right off the coast, it is at this point it's worth mentioning that I have some pretty terrible ideas and Nicole is probably the only person who goes along with most of them. So we of course decided to try to get to the island. we did, but not after I fell in the water and Nicole soaked her self pretty bad too. So after an hour of hanging out all my clothes in trees and laying on a rock in my boxers like a glowing ball of pasty skin with a slight ginger glaze, we headed back across the water and down the trail to a stone tower. The tower was closed and locked but you could go part of the way up via the outer stairs and get a half blocked view of Boston in the distance. After leaving the tower we headed back to the car via Undercliff Path and finished up in about three hours from when we started. All and all it was a great hike, saw a cave, hiked through forest, saw some people headed out to boulder, adventured to an island, climbed a tower, and had only one tick on us (on Nicole's phone presumably checking Facebook). Lynn Woods is surprising remote feeling given the surrounding area it's located in. It's about 11 miles from the center of Boston, but a few hours here can make you feel many miles away from the busyness of the North Shore. This place completely surprised me and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who lives in the area or is visiting, very much worth it.
Mileage: 3.5 Miles
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| Nicole along the trail. |
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| Cool tree trunk. |
