1.9 Miles|
North from Shaw Road Minor becomes a genuine ski trail, not simply a wide path over which old Ford tractors might have once labored. Beyond Shaw Road, Minor bends and turns, dips and rolls for better than a mile, almost the sole trail through this stretch of forest until ending at Bates Road and the western edge of Bates Field. No other of the Notchview trails provides quite the rhythmic rise and fall of Minor; yet there are stretches, flat, where you can push a kick-and-glide into high gear. In this direction, northerly, the trail gains a modest elevation but, perversely, also offers the best downhills. Old stone walls of deserted farmsteads are paralleled or breached, tumbled down cellar holes passed. Deer tracks, and squirrel and rabbit, are likely. Don't discount evidence of moose. About a third of the way through, Minor
passes the juncture of newer Windsor Trail, and later an offshoot
to ungroomed Bates Bypass. Bates Road east (and sharply downhill) to Shaw Road, or even west to Judges Hill, are possible routes home. But best to retrace Minor so as to know it in both directions. Now might be the time to turn off on Windsor Trail, much like Minor in configuration only shorter. Soon you come upon Judges Hill Trail, where a left turn (south) returns you to Circuit and various ways to the Visitor Center. A turn to the right involves some commitment; this is where Judges Hill Trail changes from more to most difficult and where the grooming stops. It's all uphill from here. |
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To know
the soul of Notchview, ski Minor
Trail. It begins dully, at an eastern corner of Circuit, runs
straight downhill over the course of an old woods road--a modest
incline but on good snow brisk enough--and at the bottom crosses
a plank bridge over Shaw Brook. After a short course through
another of the spruce plantations that dot the Reservation, Minor
reaches Shaw Road, the considered border between Inner and Outer
Trails.
Both
these tracks head west, Minor veers east. Continue on to the
end of Minor--careful on the downhill that begins after Bates
Bypass --and spend some time on Bates Field, where a shelter
may cut the wind that frequently scours the field and provides
the outlook that gives Notchview its name.