Sunday, 26-Jan-14

So I’ve climbed at Quincy Quarries since my first climbing trip into the outdoors, back in 2005.  It’s an amazing place to climb, but from the first I’d heard about hiking trails tracing their way through the blue hills surrounding the quarries.  The Quarries are part of the Blue Hills, and while I’ve gone on a few hikes in the area, I realized that I’d never explored the sections around the one place that I’ve spent the most time.

So on a lazy Sunday, I decided to change that.  I packed up a light snack and a bottle of water, put the top down on the car, and tore down I-93 to do some exploring.

What I found was surprising, to say the least: I’d expected significantly more trails than I found, but I also didn’t expect to find a whole historic monument to one of the first railroads in the United States.  I’d known that the Quarries had been, obviously, a large quarry back in the colonial days, but the scope of the work hadn’t ever hit me… until now.

But the hiking was good, and it was a nice excuse to get out of the house on an otherwise boring Sunday.  Maybe next time I’ll try the other areas around the quarries… This was just one spot, and I’m sure that there are more cool things to be found hiding around!  That’s one of the things I love most about New England, and why I want to explore Europe – the hidden history.  Places that have ages of human occupation written into the very stone (literally, in this case) that’s just waiting to be learned about.