Review Reviews: The Trescott Water Company Lands

Brendan:

Need a quick break from a crowded gym and the same old lap around Occom Pond? Look no further than the Trescott Water Company Lands! Although these acres of muddy wasteland fail to do justice to the word “water”—if any water exists it’s stuck in the table—they comprise a surprisingly pleasant, easy, and quiet hike with as many pennystone walls as on an Irish sheep mogul’s estate. Hardly anyone was on the trail when we hiked, making for an amazing experience. 

The Lands looked a little desolate at first, but we just kept walking down the service road, where we eventually came to the trailheads. One direction led to a decent lap and the reservoir (which would have made this piece much more interesting but lamenting over time constraints would forever be the bane of this author’s existence). However, with one of our group being short on time, we took the shortest path.

Given the flat ground, good pace was made. The middle of the trail was marshy due to rain over the preceding few days, but our boots made light work of the heavy mud. Seeing as how we were all lightly equipped with day packs, our group began to jog, then to bound through the trees on the trail, like so many cheeky chimps. We let up at the top of a hill, took a water break, and kept walking. A breezy threeish mile lap brought us back to the car. 

All in all, the trailhead is less than three miles from the edge of campus and barely two miles from A-Lot. If you need a place to go jogging or just want a serene sylvan stroll, the Trescott Water Company Lands offer a surprisingly convenient park to go hiking in.

James:

Need to escape the cosmopolitan dystopia of the metropolis that is Hanover? Want to live in a better world, a world before humanity made the mistake of inventing agriculture? Then spend a few hours exploring the Trescott Water Company Lands. For a brief moment, you will be able to forget the disastrous impacts of the digital revolution and bask in nature’s glory.

As winter has turned to spring, green has returned to the forests of Hanover. I and a few fellow luddites ventured into well-lit woods last week, taking a break from midterms to explore a part of Hanover that we had never seen before. 

We dismounted from the car at around 3pm and walked past the fence that closes off the lands from the road in front. Immediately, we were greeted with relatively flat trails obstructed only by the occasional April mud patch. This author, the experienced and rather stubborn hiker that he is, was wearing flimsy blue sneakers and long pants. As such, he made a special effort to leap over the mud rather than plod through it, and was mostly successful. Say what you will about mud season, but this author found that its obstacles only added extra adventure to an otherwise ordinary day hike.

The trail was dotted with old stone walls and barbed wire fences. These ruins, remnants of a time when Hanover was a noble farming town and not modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah, only added to the atmosphere of the picturesque trail. After a short water break a mile or two in, we strode the rest of the way back to the car to accommodate a member of our group’s schedule.

This author would recommend the Trescott Water Company Lands for their ease of traversal and proximity to campus. However, such proximity can be a double-edged sword; more committed hikers may want a trail farther from the honking horns and bright lights of the Hanover megalopolis.