340. "BCT": "Northernmost Jewel of the Emerald Necklace"
A joint venture not far from our friends' house in northeastern MA.

Extracting "Driftwood Man" from Plum Island dune	Posing atop bluff near northernmost point of "BCT"

No, the "BCT" is definitely not a "backpacking trail"! This is not a trail like the PCT, the Pacific Crest Trail, which follows the crest of the Sierra and Cascade Mountains for 2,650 miles, and which, back in my own long-ago "backpacking days", I actually "thru-hiked" from Mexico to Canada not just once, but three whole times!!!

Nor is the "BCT" likely to ever generate enough interest from the long-distance hiking community to attain official trail status from ALDHA as even the much shorter BAT, the Batona Trail, which winds through the comparatively wild, wooly and uninhabited pine barrens of NJ, and is among the dozens of "long-distance trails specifically designated for backpacking" that I did in the 1980's and 90's...

No, this "BCT", with its numerous road-walks, extremely frequent road crossings, relatively short distance, and much closer proximity to "backyard barbecue" than "backcountry wilderness" is certainly a far cry from the type of experience that most "serious backpackers" crave! It is even quite possible that backpacking (i.e. carrying full pack with gear and camping overnight along the way) on most sections of this so-called trail would be technically "illegal"!

However, this "BCT" does have its own wonderful niche to fill in "society". Linking roads and suburban communities with small patches of greenery all within less than an hour's drive of the busiest, most crowded urban concentration in all of New England represents a remarkable attempt to create even a semblance of a trail in this location at this point in time when so much development has already occurred. Yes, this is the "Bay Circuit Trail" that places its "green beaded necklace" of sorts in a semi-circle around the greater Boston area!

So, what got me thinking about this particular trail? Well, Pete and I were just up at the Solstice Stones atop Holt Hill in Ward Reservation looking down on Boston the other day with our friends Arline and Chuck. We had just celebrated finding my 26,000th letterbox, appropriately enough at "Trails and Tribulations" just a short ways down the hill, which was just perfect (after an aborted rather unpleasant letterboxing experience the day before), and were discussing what to do next, besides planting a final "Happy Trails" letterboxing series as my "backpacking retrospective"...

I had basically "retired" from backpacking after putting in my 26,000 tough mountain trail miles of that particular activity about a dozen years ago (and even in all those ensuing years, only a handful of very serious backpackers have ever accomplished anything even vaguely similar - certainly no one in letterboxing having done anything but a small fraction!) Now here I was basically "retiring" from letterboxing, and all I could think to say was, " Well, if I can't backpack anymore, and I've certainly had more than my fill of letterboxing, maybe each time we come up from RI to visit you guys we can at least do a short section of this Bay Circuit Trail to try to stay at least a little bit active in our "old age", and then go dancing afterwards!" So, off we went that evening - dancing in Boston!

The following morning, we were eating breakfast up in Amesbury when Pete turned on the computer and said ,"Well, wouldn't you know - we were just talking about the Bay Circuit yesterday and now there's another new box right there in Andover, with plans for other folks to plant boxes on other spots along the Bay Circuit Trail, too" - a sort of mini-version of Lightnin' Bug's "Boxification of the AT" project started out along the Appalachian Trail in PA a while back! I had long been telling Arline and Chuck that they should plant something in their neck of the woods, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to mount a "group effort"...

Chuck was immediately recruited to go find a spare eraser in his computer desk, Arline when off in search of an old film container, I found a usable knife downstairs in a kid's toy box, Pete pulled a few leaves of paper from a notebook while Chuck found a stapler to hold them together, and within minutes our makeshift group letterbox was carved, inked, stamped and ready to roll!

Well, since we were so close to the northern end of that so-called "BCT", that seemed the logical place to put this first group effort of ours, so off we headed on the road through Newburyport down the Plum Island Turnpike to the ocean! We were somewhat surprised to see the Channel 7 news team truck hanging around near the end of that road, where there was a huge backed-up sand dune and various warning signs. Arline explained that she had been hearing on the news lately that, because of so much damage from recent storms, this area (which was supposed to be the "BCT trailhead" before the "2-mile roadwalk" back along Plum Island Turnpike) was closed to the public, and anyone trying to go into this area was subject to getting a hefty fine!

So, onward we proceeded by car to the parking lot at the north end of Northern Blvd opposite the lighthouse, which the verbal description to the "BCT" says is the best place to park in this area anyway - plus there's no fee here in the "off-season"! From there we went out past the restrooms, playground and the boardwalk, east along the Merrimack River to the breakwater, up the chunky rock steps to the first bluff overlooking the ocean, and found a hopefully safe place to leave our little microbox just about halfway between the only sizable clump of bushes and a bench dedicated to Dorothy Curry. Just wander over to southwest pillar of some old foundation ruins and check discreetly on its southwest side for something small and black tucked into the tall grasses under a flat-sided stone and a small piece of driftwood. We hope that at least a few letterboxers will make it out to this rather pleasant "alternate northernmost trailhead" and little green gem of a spot, which seems to us much superior to starting this "necklace trail" merely by walking west on a road away from the ocean!

Happy Trails from Wanda & Pete & Arline & Chuck!!!

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