Search and Recovery Mission

Saturday, December 7


OK, so if you read my last blog entry, you may recall that I lost my water bottle.  This was the first Nalgene bottle I ever owned, and it has been through a lot.  The first time I remember losing it was hiking on South Mountain in the Lehigh Valley.  But I retraced my steps and eventually found it in the leaves.  It has almost floated away more than once on kayak trips when my boat overturned, but I always got it back.  Just last spring, I lost it orienteering in Carlisle, but when I went back to look for it, a young lady doing the same course as me found it and returned it.  The strap connecting the lid broke years ago and I was ready to throw it out.  Then I found a replacement part for it at REI to extend its life.

Needless to say, all during this past week, I was going over in my head where it might have fallen out of my day pack.  Unfortunately, since it gets dark just after 4pm, I was not able to get out to look after work any day.  Today's mission was to find that water bottle!  

I am starting from Redemption Rock in Princeton and heading north on the Mid-State trail (see map from last week's hike).

It's going to be a little harder than I thought to look for this water bottle.  Besides all the leaves, we got a little snow last night.  And it looks like they got a little bit more here than we had in Leominster.

I rarely travel north on this section of the trail, and I don't recall ever seeing this sign.  I'd better check it out.

Yup.  It's a glacial boulder alright, although not as impressive as Sampson's Pebble or Balance Rock.

At this point, I'm thinking it's not much further to where it fell out.  Looking back toward Mr. Wachusett, you can see there's a some snow even off the ski trails.

As I'm walking along, I keep seeing these tracks.  Ahh - these are made by wild turkeys.  They are all over the place this time of year.  However, I didn't actually see any today.

Alas, I walked for 30 minutes, well beyond where I thought it might have fallen out.  No luck in finding it, though.  On my way back I have to navigate snow-covered roots and rocks.  Even with trekking poles, it's a bit of a challenge.  I wound up falling on a big piece of granite on this steep, rocky hillside.

I hiked for about an hour (a little over a mile), but in the end I guess it was finally time to say "So Long" to my old water bottle.  Which is a shame, because it still had water in it and I was getting kind of thirsty.