Date visited: 7/13/2022
This is a very fun trail. The trail starts in Blackstone, MA but the majority of the trail resides in North Smithfield, RI. The dam and waterfall are in Blackstone. I let the dogs take a quick dip into the river as soon as we got there since it was such a hot day, that's why the dogs look wet in some of these photos. The trail quickly crosses into Rhode Island as it continues along side the Blackstone River. The terrain is rocky and rooty enough to be fun, but not too rocky and rooty to be very difficult. There's a complete landscape change toward the end of the trail as it turns away slightly from the river. Per the route on the All-Trails app, we turned around at the strange old building and headed back. The pictures below are from the Blackstone, MA section of the trail.
Date visited: 6/4/2024
Blackstone Greenway - See Also: Worcester, MA,
Millbury, MA,
Uxbridge, MA,
Millville, MA,
Blackstone, MA,
Woonsocket, RI, North Smithfield, RI,
Cumberland, RI, Lincoln, RI,
Providence, RI
Southern New England Trunkline Trail - See Also: Douglas, MA, Uxbridge, MA, Millville, MA, Blackstone, MA
With this adventure we finished all the completed sections of the Blackstone River Greenway. There are currently five different discontinuous sections, and we've now walked all of them. For this adventure, we started at the Canal Street parking area, at the current southern end of the trail in Massachusetts. There is currently construction going on to extend the trail, eventually connecting to a section in Woonsocket, RI. There's a bridge being built behind the fence, where the trail will eventually be extended. It's doubtful that the entire trail will be completely built in Mandy and Lexi's lifetime, but we will be sure to visit any sections that get completed in the future. For now, we headed northwest, about 2.5 miles, to where we left off in Millville two years prior. This is an interesting section of trail, with four different river crossings over elaborate bridges. There are no at-grade road crossings at all on this stretch. Any crossings are via an overpass or underpass. There is a kids play area right off the trail, a short way from the Canal Street parking area. There are various side trails, but there wasn't enough time to explore them, since we didn't get started until 5:30 PM. The entire route has a slight uphill grade. We climbed 226 feet over 2.5 miles, but it was all downhill on the 2.5 miles back! Check out the Millvile page, for photos from that section.