Rock Circuit Trail – Middlesex Fells Reservation

After living just outside Boston for 20 years, I finally spent some time at the Fells Reservation. I have no good reason for not hitting this spot earlier! The Middlesex Fells Reservation stretches within Medford, Stoneham, Melrose, Malden, and Winchester. The Fells comprise 100 miles of hiking and walking trails, as well as mountain biking and boating.

I got to the trailhead at 7 am and parked at the large DCR lot at Flynn Rink. This parking lot gives access to many of the trails on the eastern side of the Fells. I planned to hike the Rock Circuit Trail; it’s a 4.2-mile loop with some great Boston views and some decent elevation gain (relative to its location, that is).

Early Hike Observations

Download the full Middlesex Fells Reservation trail map.

To get to the Rock Circuit Trail’s actual trailhead, I needed to first walk along the blue-marked trail called The Woodland Path for about four-tenths of a mile. This stretch was peaceful, passing by a small pond and general wooded area. The first thing I noticed about hiking this section of the Fells is that you can hear Route 93s din the entire time. I will say that after about an hour, I just stopped noticing it as a constant behind the sounds of birds.

Once on the trail, there is a decent grade experienced as you start building slight elevation up that first hill. The trail is typical for what you see in the northeast, with lots of granite and exposed roots. By this time, the sun was starting to show higher in the sky, and it felt good to be in the warmth of it. At the start of the hike, the high temp was 30 degrees.

Impressive Amount of Rocks

In researching this hike ahead of pursuing it today, there was a lot of talk from past hikers about how this trial was planned. Folks reporting that it’s seemingly intentional about seeking and rolling over each large boulder or rock formation in the Eastern Fells. I wasn’t sure about this initially, but it didn’t take long for that reality to set in. But hey, it’s literally called Rock Circuit trail; what do you expect!

Honestly, without the up and down of the large rock summits, this would be a super mild hike, so I am glad I picked this one.

The hiking rhythm was very much like, hike up a boulder or ledge, hike down and and then walk along a semi flat trail and then back to hiking up another rock. It got to the point where the trail got predictable where it would lead, I just looked up ahead for a large rock!

Here are is a small gallery of cool ROCKS.

The Peaks of Rock Circuit Trail

• Melrose Rock (197 ft)
• Black Rock (179 ft)
• Pinnacle Rock (250 ft)
• Boojum Rock (275 ft)

These were the hike highlights; each required a decent amount of effort to get up, albeit short-lived. They each provide wonderful 360-degree views for miles.

MIT Observatory

I was curious about this part of the trail when I saw it on the trail map the night before heading to the hike. Hiking the trail clockwise, I reached the MIT Observatory toward the end of the loop hike.

I didn’t know much about this place aside from what I read on this website. The story on that site about two guys trying to locate the observatory. The gist of why this place existed is, the 15 square foot stone observatory was built in 1899 by MIT to research geodesy, the study, and measurement of the earth’s shape.

Closing Thoughts

I am grateful to have the Fells Reservation practically in my backyard and intend to spend more time there starting this year. The trail’s technical challenges are not impressive, but if you know that going in, you’ll find other ways to have a good time and work up a sweat. Also, if you live in the area and looking for a place to get on your mountain bike, this place seems to attract many riders. I saw 4 of them today, which matched the number of hikers I encountered at the time of seeing them.

Someone brought to my attention recently that the Health app on the iPhone tracks your steps. I looked after the walk/hike today and it’s reporting 13,546 steps from hiking the Rock Circuit Trail. That seems like a lot to me because I don’t have a frame of reference (I’ve never noted my steps before).

I look forward to heading back to the Fells on my mountain bike.