US-2878 Lincoln State Park / US-5483 Lincoln Woods State Forest

Sunday was a spectacular day in New England. We haven't had a frost yet, so it isn't Indian Summer (Indigenous Peoples Summer?), but a stretch of 70-80º F sunny days is so welcome this time of year. The Patriots had already lost badly to horrible Jaguars team in London in the morning, so the afternoon beckoned.

Lincoln State park is yet another nearby destinations that I just haven't spent any time at in all my years hiking in this area. I tend to be looking for artifacts in stone left by early peoples, especially stone placements related to astronomy and calendaring. An excellent example is at US-4702 Gilbert Hills, which features a large dolmen (a flat rock placed on 'feet'), a series of boulders aligned north/south, and standing stones a distance away that can be used to mark the motions of the sun and moon over the course of the year.

Here, though, it's mainly about the pond. A lovely 2.5-mile paved trail loops around it, and the park has a lot of trails in wooded areas, many leading to the aforementioned bouldering sites. I should mention that if your partner isn't into POTA, Bally's Casino is just a few miles down the road...

I arrived on the west side of the park at the Twin River Road gate. Take a right past the entrance kiosk – the road to the left will likely be gated off a short distance away. You'll see quite a few folks parked on the side of the road on a busy day, but keep driving, and around a little bend you'll see a very large parking area to your left. At the other end of this parking area, around a curve, is ANOTHER parking area, but that one has a RIPTA bus stop! Yes, you literally can get on the bus with your gear and end up at this beautiful POTA location!

Olney Pond is to your left (east) in this shot, and to the right is a small area of new-growth hardwood with a short loop trail, as I recall named Warmup. It isn't a walking warmup, there are some smallish boulders here that you can use to get limber before tackling some of the bigger ones in park like Yosemite Boulder. A satellite view just shows the canopy, and I hadn't been here before, so I walked in to the nearest forest I could find. It was clear immediately that I wouldn't be operating from this location, it was very open, had very few trees usable for an antenna, and the area itself is pretty small. I like to hide in the forest when I POTA, so this wan't my spot.

To the north of this area is a space reserved for horse trails (and hikers, of course). There's a stable just before the entrance to the park that offers rides, and it was open on this Sunday so I saw several groups out on horseback. Keep this in mind as you are walking down the trail...

I headed in that direction. It was relatively crowded along the main road and path on the west side – this was a stunning afternoon and everyone was out enjoying it. LOTS of dogs, if you like dogs! It was about half a mile to this spot, and once I turned in to the trail I was happy I'd not tried to force an operation in the earlier scrub. This part of the park is beautiful, with enormous glacial erratic boulders everywhere. Here in Rhode Island the ice sheet from the last glacial period was in place a mile thick or more, and carried enormous boulders from the north that, when the ice melted, were deposited nearly vertical on the ground, just like someone with big hands gently put them there. Here's one with my walking stick for scale.

Another draw of Lincoln Woods is that there are dozens and dozens of tucked-away grilling sites with picnic tables that would be ideal to set up on. You can drive up to them, so if your POTA gear is attached to your car, not a problem, and you still get the pleasure of being in a semi-secluded spot in the forest. Here's one that is typical.

Much of the park is Olney Pond, and it has a large beach-house facility with amenities, and food truck will be there in season. I can't write a review of the park without including the pond!

I did actually operate from here, even though I spent a lot of time just hiking around and enjoying the day! I eventually hiked over to an outcropping that included a set of boulders called Potato and Potato Salad, up maybe 25 to 30 feet above the trail. I'm using an EFHW right now and it was quick work to get a line into a tree right at the edge of the outcrop, then a line to elevate the feedpoint to about ten feet. Here's the operating position.

I just did FT8 for this activation since there were folks around and I normally hide deep in the woods to avoid attention. That has to be somehow against the spirit of POTA, right? But I'm an intensely private person and really enjoy the solitude of the deep woods. So, no CW for this one. I ran off 15 FT8 QSOs on 10m and 20m in the course of 45 minutes and decided to pack up and walk around a bit more before heading home.

This is a two-fer , US-5483 the state forest contains US-2878 the park. It was my firts two-fer and I was a little confused about how to upload he logs to POTA.app. Michael, one of the admins, helped fix a problem I'd introduced and explained the correct approach. Two fields in the ADIF record, <my_sig> and <my_sig_ref> should be filled in as (for example)

<my_sig:4>POTA
<my_sig_ref:7>US-5483

for each entry from the park. If you are just doing a single park it usually isn't an issue, but with multiples you'll need to edit your ADIF file with a text editor to add info for each additional park.

There's a lot I didn't see here, and I'm actually heading back today to take a look at an area near where I operated that has springs, caves, and a Druid Circle marked on the park map, and I am all over that kinda thing. Thanks to everyone who stopped by for a QSO that day!

ID: US-5483 Lincoln State Forest, US-2878 Lincoln State Park
Location: Lincoln, Rhode Island, Providence County, Grid FN41
Activation date: 20 October 2024
Activated by: W1GRD