Hilda & Morris Golden Trail

 

Weather Observatory

 

The Blue Hill Weather Observatory is only steps away from Eliot Tower and is also receiving some long-awaited renovations.

View

 

That's Boston to your left and the harbor to your right as seen from the top of Eliot Tower.

Tower

 

Eliot Tower, a 35-foot-tall (11 m) stone structure, was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) between 1933 and 1944.  

The tower offers a view of about 270°, including all of Boston, Boston Harbor, and much of the South Shore. 

Eliot Tower

 Built in 1904 as a tribute to Charles Eliot the famous Landscape Architect who was instrumental in preserving the Blue Hills Reservation, little has been done since to maintain the Eliot Tower and Memorial Bridge. A complete restoration, however, is now, finally, in progress.

 

Jute

 

So part of my reason for wanting to hike the Red Dot Loop Trail was to see how some of the mitigation efforts were coming along, in particular the installation of these jute mats intended to control the erosion that had been taking place where the trail meets the so-called Summit Road. Unfortunately, most of the seed that had been sown underneath has failed to produce, probably because this was done late last fall (November:?)--not the ideal time to be sowing seed in Massachusetts. 

Red Dot

 

Once off the plane, I made a bee line toward the Blue Hills Reservation, a 7,000-acre state park in Norfolk County, Massachusetts. I had heard about some work being done on towers there and I wanted to go see it for myself. To get there, I hiked the rather prosaically named Red Dot Loop Trail.