This weekend, we went for our walk at Big Finn Hill Park, another trail from the Urban Trails book. I’d say the defining characteristic of this park was its intersection numbering system.

Some parks, you wander around mystified on unmarked trails, eventually popping out somewhere you recognize. At this park, you wander around mystified on randomly marked trails, still lost and, additionally, completely unable to anticipate what the next intersection number might be.

“Guess the next intersection number” became our #1 game on this walk. Every time we saw an intersection number marker, we tried to anticipate what it might be. Benji would look at it; Ian and I tried to guess. We basically never got it right. If the previous intersection was 53, the next one might be 18. If we just saw 25, we might see 26 — but this is a deceptive faux-pattern! because next we’d see 47.

Fortunately, the crazy numbering is just a little endearing quirk of the park. Otherwise it’s a fairly nice set of mostly flat forested trails, only occasionally marred by enthusiastic mountain bikers.

Big Finn Hill Park Map
We don’t understand this useless numbering system AT ALL!
Big Finn Hill Park Rocks
A glacial erratic — and a big rock.

Here’s where we ended up going. We picked the route by taking turns deciding which way to go at each intersection — so as close enough to random as makes no difference.

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