The Middlesex Fells Reservation — or “The Fells” as locals call it — is an enormous park situated between Medford and Stoneham, MA. It’s sheer vastness and the lack of visitor information online about trails and parking has prevented me from checking it out in the past. But, after an August heat wave in quarantine kept me home for so long, I was ready to entertain just about any promise of some outdoor exploration.
Our initial destination was Wright’s Tower, on the Medford-side of the reservation. But, alas, even on a cloudy afternoon, all the parking along South Border Road was very full. We reprogrammed the GPS to send us to another potential parking destination—Copland House, up by Spot Pond in Stoneham. It was a 12 minute drive to the other side of the park. What!
Copland House appears to be an abandoned house that is maybe historic (?), but no plaques or anything say what it is, exactly. Thankfully there were a couple open parking spots. Most people were headed into the Virginia Wood Trail. Not anticipating a woodsy walk, and with no trail map, we headed in the opposite direction to walk along the edge of Spot Pond.
On Pond Street (appropriately named), most of the pond views were obscured by trees, so we headed towards the Spot Pond Lookout on Google Maps, hoping to see some water there. This took us along the backside of Stone Zoo which was an unexpected treat, because we could clearly see into the zoo through the fence! Inside the zoo we saw a goat, a crane, maybe a cougar, and a chipmunk. The chipmunk was not part of the zoo, we don’t think!
The pond lookout was a small beachy area that was lovely, if not a bit eerie, because there was absolutely no one around. No one on the sand, no one on the water. Emptiness. Social distancing success?
Because the Middlesex Fells Reservation is so big (have I mentioned how BIG it is?) there was no easy, short way for us to loop around, we turned back to go to the car. I would still like to go back at some point to see Wright’s Tower (maybe early in the morning will be less busy?) or one of the many other destinations that must be there within the reservation.