Four of us met in Cambridge at 8 AM for the drive over to Lowell to hike Mts. Tillotson and Belvedere. Multiple people had dropped out of the hike in the days before which left just our small core group of strong hikers to start up shortly before 9 AM.

Note: On the drive to the trailhead several small dogs (untethered and unashamed of their ferocity) saw us driving by and immediately lunged toward our vehicle, charging our small and undefended EV. We successfully navigated around them noting that they were the most ferocious sub 10 pound dogs we’d seen in recent memory.

Upon arrival at the trailhead the first thing we all noticed was that there was far more snow than we thought there’d be. No worries though as we were all well prepared for it. Temperatures were mostly in the 20’s which would make for comfortable hiking.

We made our way from the parking lot onto the trail toward Tillotson camp. En route one person in the group wasn’t feeling well and thought we’d need to turn back, but whatever the malady was soon passed and we were able to regroup to make our way up to Mt. Tillotson.

Mt. Tillotson didn’t afford much in the way of views, but it was a good warmup for the hike over to Belvidere.

After a short pause on Mt. Tillotson we made our way back down to the camp and were on our way to Belvidere. While the hike from the camp to Mt. Belvidere is only 2.5 miles and not terribly difficult, we all felt that it seemed interminable today. It was pleasant being in the snow on the ridge, so it was strange we were all having the same feeling about it. But that said we made our way and before long we were on the summit of Belvidere.

The summit has good views down to the abandoned asbestos mines in Lowell, and there is also a fire tower to explore. Most of us were not interested in the icy tower today, but Liana has no fear of icy open structures so she represented the group on top today. After some lunch and photos we started our 3 mile descent.

The descent was mostly uneventful until near the end when the trip leader, me, slipped crossing a stream and took a hard fall before sliding back into said stream. No major damage done other than to ego. After that we all took our wet boots back to the car to make our way back to Cambridge where we were parked.

Participants: Liana Edwards, Julie Cimonetti, Dave Seissen and Chris Luczynski (substitute Trip Leader).