An Interpretive Trail Guide
	to the
	Kensan Devan Sanctuary
	Return to the Kensan Devan Sanctuary

Winterberry Trail
This trail is approximately 0.5 mile of moderately easy walking, taking you along the shore of the pond and then down an old logging road, intersecting with Underwood Road. Quiet hemlock glens, spring wildflowers and watery vistas await the hiker along this trail.

Begin your walk at the boat landing, where the trail heads through a hemlock grove to meander along the shoreline of Meetinghouse Pond. Watch for tracks and droppings of porcupine and snowshoe hare beneath the trees. Along the shore are water-loving shrubs such as winterberry holly and maleberry, and summer wildflowers such as marsh st. johnswort and goldthread. Where the trail gets higher and drier, the hemlock is soon overtopped by red oak, white pine and paper birch, and different flowers appear: trailing arbutus, bunchberry, and twinflower.

Heading away from the pond, along the side of a ridge, you pass through another hemlock glen, this one dark and bouldery. Red squirrels chatter and chickadees forage in the treetops. Rock polypody, an evergreen fern, sprouts on the larger boulders. How do you think it survives on the cold face of the rock?

Where the trail takes a sharp left, stop to enjoy the view before passing through a gap in the stone wall. This wall was likely built around 1800, as a boundary line between the land of Shubael Stove and Henry Hunt, and was probably maintained and added to by subsequent property owners. Another wall stands to the north of this one, separating Stove's land from the Fitch Pasture.

Walk down toward the pond again, through sheep laurel and patches of low blueberry, until you reach an old open-grown American beech. This tree, with its smooth bark and many low branches, has lived most of its life in a relatively open spot, where it's had lots of "elbow room." Here the path turns upslope, and you approach a junction.

Turn right, following the red blazes, to complete the Winterberry Trail, or go straight, following the yellow blazes, to follow the Rocky Ridge Trail. A left turn will take you on a short jog to the pond edge, to admire the view.

Turning right, you enter a young, mixed forest of oak, pine, beech and hemlock. Listen for wood warblers here in the springtime, or watch juncos flitting through winter branches. This was once a logging road, with a landing at this end--a clearing where the logs were stacked. Can you tell where this landing might have been?

Soon you'll reach Underwood Road and turn right. As you stroll back to the parking area, keep an eye out for more clues to past human activities at the Pond.

Rocky Ridge Trail
The Rocky Ridge Trail is about 1.5 miles (including the initial part of the Winterberry Trail) of rugged hiking. It continues along the pond's edge, up and over a stony, dry ridge, and down to a beaver pond. From there, it heads south for a short distance to join Underwood Road, and follows it back to the boat landing. Wildlife sign, from fisher tracks, to deer trails to beaver activity, is abundant along this trail.

From the junction with the Winterberry Trail, continue straight along the water's edge. The trail follows the pond for a while, then at an old hemlock by the shore, it turns abruptly and begins to wind uphill. Soon you're on top of a ridge, dominated by red oak and white pine - trees that are well adapted to poor, dry soils. Many great boulders lie scattered where they were dumped by the last glacier, about 12,000 years ago. Spring wildflowers, wintergreen, Canada mayflower, pink lady's slipper and Clintonia, as well as clubmosses of many species, carpet the ground.

As you hike down the gentle eastern slope of the ridge, keep an eye out for wildlife sign; well-worn deer trails crisscross the ridge, and here and there are nibbled twigs, or perhaps some mysterious tracks or diggings on a fresh snowfall. Whitetail deer and other animals frequent the slope to browse and feed on the abundant "mast," the acorns and beechnuts produced in the fall. Just one of the big, old open-grown oaks you can find on this hill can produce 20 pounds of acorns in a good year! This makes them very important trees for forest residents.

The oaks also affect the forest by shading out nearby trees (such as white pine) competing with them for water and light. Between the timber cutting of the early 1900's and the Hurricane of '38, there were not many trees left on the ridge. The 160 year-old Red Oaks are ancients in a young forest of 50-70 year-old trees, many of which are stunted from competing with their elders.

As you come to the bottom of the slope, you enter what is called a boulder field: a very rocky area where a glacier deposited a load of boulders, perhaps plucked by freezing and thawing action from the ridge above.

At the junction of the red and yellow trails, take the red trail for a short walk to the beaver ponds.

The Beaver Pond Path
The Beaver Pond Path travels through a small stand of mature white pine and ends at the dam between two beaver ponds, constructed several years ago along a stream. At this writing, the ponds are deserted and water trickles through spots in the dam, which a resident beaver would have been quick to repair. You can still see signs of the beavers' past activity: chewed sticks and stumps along the water's edge, and worn trails through the vegetation.

Although the dam is leaky, the water level is still high. Here you may surprise a family of black ducks in the summer, or watch a kingfisher diving for a meal. You may even spot a mink or an otter swimming through, or a beaver looking for a likely place to set up housekeeping again. In fact, by the time you read this, the beavers may have returned!

When you return to the yellow trail, bear left and continue to Underwood Road. A right turn at the road will return you to the parking area.

On your walk back, you'll pass through hemlock groves and forests of American beech and birch. Look for the fragrant white flowers of hobblebush in the spring, and witch hazel in the fall, our latest flowering shrub. Beechdrops, strange, leafless, orchidlike flowers, grow in profusion beneath the beech trees, where they parasitize the roots.

After a rainy day, keep an eye out for toadstools, sprouting from stumps, popping up under pines, or deliquescing in the duff. The mixed woods of Meetinghouse Pond harbor many fascinating mushroom species. How many kinds of fungi can you find? See the inset for a little help with mushroom identification.