September 2nd 2013: Climbing Up Mount Tully, Orange

I have not been to Northwestern Massachusetts for a while now, so I decided to use Labor Day, when most of my restaurants where I have groupons would probably be closed for the holiday, to head into the Northwest once again. I first visited a few places in Worcester

Holy Trinity Armenian Apostolic Church,
635 Grove Street

and Holden.

Chaffin Pond, 513 Main Street

Bryant Pond, 54 Bailey Road

Stump Pond, 45 Causeway Street

Maple Spring Pond,
Princeton Street near Cobb Street

Quinapoxet Reservoir,
Princeton Street and Elmwood Avenue

Holden Reservoir #1, Reservoir Street near S Road

Holden Reservoir #2,
Stonehouse Hill Road and Reservoir Street

Cournoyer Pond,
Mason Road near Wood Street

At the Trout Brook Conservation Area, located at 332 Manning Street, I took a short stroll down the path to locate the small but nice pond there.

It was here that I saw my first red spotted newt for the day after the rains yesterday, and would see many more throughout the rest of the day.

Heading to the town of  Barre, there is a Christian site at 33 Harty Road having a giant cross painted into the ground, with the giant words "God's Wisdom" that can be seen from outer space.

What the whole cross is

Holy Water

This is what the whole thing looks like from outer space, courtesy of Google Maps.

From here, I headed into Petersham,

Brown Pond Dam,
East Street and Shaw Road

Harvard Pond,
New Salem Road near Old New Salem Road

New Salem

South Spectacle Pond,
South Athol Road near Sweezy Lane

and Athol

South Athol United Methodist Church

South Athol Pond,
Washington Avenue and South Athol Road

Seventh Day Adventist Church

before finally reaching the town of Orange to start my sightseeing there. Here I visited a few places

Lake Mattawa Beach

Mission Covenant Church

Community Church of North Orange and Tully

Bethany Evangelical Lutheran Church,
62 Cheney Street

before heading to lunch at the Equus Restaurant, a small town breakfast place at 217 East Main Street in town, which thankfully was open today.

For food, I decided to go for the Bruce Pile, consisting of Cheese, 2 Poached Eggs, Hashbrowns, chipped beef and gravy. What I did not expect was something that looked like baby food.

Thankfully, the hash browns and eggs were all there, and the dish was actually pretty delicious.


After lunch, it was time to start hiking in town. My first destination was the Kiwanis Bicentennial Park, located at 195 Holtshire Road. There is no official trail map online, but thankfully there was one on the signpost at the trailhead.

I used it to view the two water bodies and the dam here.

the dam

After a decent hike, it was time for my next hike at the North Pond Ridge Trail, the entrance to it located at ~50 Chestnut Hill Road. The trail I took to get to the Chestnut Hill Overlook is shown blow in pink.

It was a pretty long hike though, and the view from the overlook was just so-so.

Overall, not worth the hike.

Finally it was time for my third and final hike to get to the top of Tully Mountain, located on the path of the Tully Trail at the end of Mountain Road, where I found parking. Unfortunately, this is exactly where I disoriented myself, as the real trailhead is located further down the road, as I later realized. It is just fortunate that I chose the right paths to get to the top of the mountain and get back to my car. The path I took is shown below in black.

Instead of going clockwise, I actually was going anticlockwise all the way, and I only realized my mistake when I emerged onto the road at the real trailhead, way after my beautiful views at the summit.

After this hike, I was to go for more in the town of Warwick. I headed to Sheomet Lake first at ~595 Athol Road, which has a beautiful waterfall.

Next, I decided to check out the east side of the Arthur Iversen Conservation Area, where the path I took to get to the small waterfall, the Devil's Dustbowl, located at the very end of the trail on Hodge Brook, is shown below in pink.

The path to get there was pretty overgrown though, and my feet got wet walking past the brook. The waterfall itself was a little disappointing as well.

When I finally backtracked out to my car, I decided it was too late to check out the west side trails on the other side of Gale Road.

For the rest of the day, I checked out a few more places in Warwick until the sun went down.

Richards Reservoir,
End of Old Robbins Road

Old Unitarian Church,
Athol Road and Warwick Road

Fountain,
Warwick Free Public Library

Warwick Fire Department

Moores Pond,
South Holden Road and Wendell Road

Finally, it was too dark to take any more pictures, so I decided to head back into Orange to get a Chinese dinner at Tea House Restaurant, which has pretty decent decor.

For food, I decided to get the Hunan Crispy Beef (sliced beef filet, quick sauteed and pan flipped over high flame, blended in delicate sauce on crispy bed of Chinses rice noodles), which wasn't too bad for Americanized Chinese food.

I do not know why, but I was also given a complimentary bowl of soup as well.

With that, I headed home, ending a long day of hikes, the best of which was of course at Tully Mountain.