Blue Hills Spring Training Hike

When spring has finally sprung in Boston, I take to the local hills for a 9 mi hike of the Skyline Trail, which traverses the Blue Hill Range of the Blue Hills Reservation just south of Boston, MA. The hills are truely small, the highest is only 635 ft above sea level. But when you combine 12 of these hills together, it turns into a quality day out in the woods. So after hiking the one way traverse with a friend this March, we determined we could easily turn around and walk back, making it a double traverse of about 18 mi. So a few weeks later, we did just that.

But first, a little history....
The Blue Hills Reservation has a long history of usage & settlements, including the Native American Massachuset tribe, who called this home for over 9,000 years before the early European settlers came in the 17th century, building homes, logging and clearing the woods for farmland. The quarry industry came in the 1800s to extract granite rock used in buildings across the nation. And scientists came as well, building one of the first weather observatories in the US, atop the park's highest point, Great Blue Hill.

Originally purchased by the Metropolitan Parks System (MPS) in the 1890s, the reservation is now cared for by the MA Department of Recreation & Conservation (DCR). The area is the widest swath of green space in the Boston area, about 7,000 acres, spanning 5 towns, and is truely and urban oasis park, never too far from a road and used by countless people in the region for a variety of activities including hiking, trail running, mountain biking, rock climbing, swimming, boating, fishing, picnicking, x-c skiing, downhill skiing, softball and more! Highlights include the Blue Hill Weather Observatory (still in operation today), the Charles Elliot viewing Tower, the Trailside Museum explaining the cultural, natural and historical history of the area w/a live animal display, a cedar bog walk on Ponkapog pond, the Blue Hill Ski area in winter, and of hundreds of miles of hiking trails.

Skyline Trail noted in blue, parking in purple. Full size map

So in early April, a group of 5 gathered for the double traverse at the far east end of the reservation, at the Shea Memorial Skating Rink parking lot. We left a car here containing extra water, food and clothes which we would access at the midpoint of our hike, and piled into another car to drive 10 min to the west end on RT 138. This parking lot isn't located at the true end of the Skyline, there's about a mile of wet marshy trail to the west, which dead ends at Rt 95. Which we decided to skip that section and head east, in the direction of our midpoint. (If you want to do a true Skyline Traverse, your best bet is to start at the east end of the park at the Shea Skating Rink, head west to the far marshy area, and then turn back around).

Heading east from the Rt 138 parking lot, the Skyline Trail crosses the road takes you straight up the rocky steps to the highest hill, Great Blue, where you can visit the Blue Hill Weather Observatory & Science Center, which offer public tours on Saturday, and walk up the granite Elliot Tower, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the 1930s, for excellent views of the reservation, Boston Skyline, the Harbor Islands and beyond.

Charles Elliot Tower, , named after the landscape architect & founding father of the Metropolitan Parks System

The Boston Skyline from the Elliot tower

Here the trail splits into a North or South options. Both bring you to the Reservation Headquartersm where you can refill on water, use the restroom and buy a trail map. We took the longer North trail, going up and down Wolcott, Hemmingway and Hancock hills, where you can gaze back at Great Blue, looking distant. We stopped briefly at the headquarters, crossed the road and continued over Tucker Hill, past some large glacial erratics and up Buck Hill, a fan favorite, where we stopped for more great views, a breeze, and early lunch on its rocky open top. The trail tumbles down the rocky backside of Buck Hill, crosses Rt 28 and makes its way up Chickatawbut Hill, where there's an fenced off, solar-powered Education Center. The crowds begin to thin and views of the harbor islands become clearer as you approach the east end of the park. Crossing a road again, you head up Wampatuck hill, which holds a little pond often overfilled with spring runoff. The final climb is up Rattlesnake Hill, an steep and fun scramble up a huge tumble of granite. This is a well known rock climbing area, used by locals as well as the Appalachian Mountain Club Mountaineering Committee, who teach fledgling rock climbers various rock climbing skills. Somewhere in here, either before or after this hill, is a small stagnant pool of water, which appears to be a very small quarried area. Inside the pool you can spot minnows, tadpoles and hear peepers in the spring. The path then cuts through the two St Moritz Ponds, where you might spot a few deer and ducks on the shore. Up a small rise and through some tall pines, we were suddenly at the parking lot of Shea Skating Rink, where our food, water and dry socks waited.

Small quarry area

A few of our party left at the midpoint, taking one of the cars home, while the other 3 of us carried on & back to the start. I had never done the traverse in this direction before, and it was fun to see landmarks and views we hadn't seen going the other way. I was feeling tired by the time we got to Buck Hill again, the unofficial mid point in either direction. But after a brief rest and second lunch, we were bouncing along the rocky trail once again, up the Great Blue Hill and down to our car. If you have 8 hours to spare on a nice day, I highly recommend the 16-18 mi double traverse (with our without the 1ish mile of marshy trail to the west).

If you go: I find trail running shoes to be best for gripping the rocky, sometimes steep trails on the Skyline. Maps can be bought for $3 at the Reservation Headquarters on Chickatawbut Rd, which is a small house next to the State Police barracks. There are various parking lots to start and end your hike, whatever milage day you choose.