Shattuck Reservation and Cedar River

I had the Saturday after Thanksgiving off from work. I went to the Attleboro Area Industrial Museum in the morning. This left me all afternoon to do something else. I decided to go for a quick hike up in Medfield. There are two open spaces owned by the Trustees of the Reservations across Causeway Street from each other. They are Noon Hill and Shattuck Reservation. Combined they are about 700 acres. Noon Hill has more miles of trail as Shattuck has about 1.5 miles compared to the 6+ miles at Noon Hill. Also I have read Noon Hill has a really nice view.

Shattuck Reservation

My plan was to go to Noon Hill and do as many miles as possible. when I pulled into the parking area (off Noon Hill Road which is in itself off of Causeway Street) there were a lot of cars in the lot. I decided to search out solitude instead of views and went back to Causeway St and the Shattuck Reservation. There is a small unsigned pulloff about 1/4 mile from Noon Hill Road on Causeway Street. This is where I parked. I walked fifty yards down to a connector trail. This trail linked up to a red loop trail. I enjoyed my walk in the 38 degree forest. The trail went by the Charles River in a couple of spots. In more than one place side trails went off toward the water. The views of the river were marshy and overall very scenic

. I saw a total of two people on my hike ( mountain biker and a jogger). I was surprised to see the mountain biker since there was an inch or two of snow on the ground making for treacherous riding conditions.

There was one downside to this hike. There is a sportsmen's club across the river. The whole time I was there shotguns were being fired off at clay pigeons. At one point on the loop I was close enough to repeatedly hear ":Pull! Bang!"

Once back near the car at the end of my loop hike. I continued down the original path that I started on. It led to a cool peninsular that the Charles River does a u-turn around. Swamp was on one side and on the other a small pond made by a bend in the river. It was the most scenic spot I saw all day.

I'm sure this makeshift campsite (notice the campfire stones in between two trees)
was highly illegal, but what a nice setting to do some "stealth camping"

I only had to climb about 3 feet for this "summit view"
of the Charles River

This is the "pond" as the river bends around the peninsular. 

Cedar River

After I got back to the car I only had about an hour of daylight left. This wasn't enough time to properly explore Noon Hills miles of trail so I saved that hike for another day. In my way to Noon Hill I passed another Trustees owned property called Cedar River (named for cedar trees along the Charles River bank0. There was only one mile of trail so I thought, Why not? I pulled into the parking lot and went for the river. The neatest thing about this property, along with many other Trustees properties, was the old stone walls from a time when the area was all farm land. but to be honest this place was a bit of a disappointment. The one mile loop trail basically circles a private residence that is somehow right in the middle of the property. If you go to the river first as I did, the house is always on your right as you circle it.

When reading about the Cedar River, the literature says deer and wild turkeys abound. I would probably stop again at dawn or dusk as I was driving by, just to see if any animals were in the fields. I would not however make a special trip to go there.

As I passed by stone walls at Cedar River they had these
granite posts wherever the trail ran through it

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