Northwest Upton

I took a couple walks in northwestern Upton over the last couple of weekends. Upton is a town that "rarely disappoints", and the northwestern part is full of nice open woods. On both walks I parked on North Str. adjacent to the Mass Pike. First out, I went east and south (later I went west and south) across a hill down into a valley and then along the slopes of the hill that drains into the valley (right hand blue outline).

At first I spotted a suspicious "linear" pile that was too slight to count as a stone wall. I could see the rocks melting out of the snow:

So then I started looking around more carefully. Here was another pile, a few steps across the slope:

 Worth taking a closer look. There is a hint of the rectangular outline - in the small.

Then I looked some more and found more. First day of finding rock piles after a slow winter, I was taking it all in but not seeing many details. Mostly these are pretty decrepit piles.

First a few piles in a bend of the brook. On one side of the brook they were evenly spaced:

Here the brook curves around the left side of the picture. The piles are the large brown, melted out spots, curving off into the background, in the same way as the brook. 
When I find piles that are evenly spaced ("marker piles") I look for something larger nearby. At first my attention went to the stone wall cutting off this bend of land and brook. It was wide here, with some holes in the surface:

And look how it goes from being a single course of rocks to a wider section - just while passing this bend in the brook. Seems relevant.

Later I found a different "something larger nearby", which was a solitary larger pile across the brook, and facing this site a few feet away. I think this is it (looking past it, downhill):

I continued to explore the slope, there was lots more to be found. Numerous piles of the slightly larger dimension:

And many piles along the brook:

One thing I was hoping for was a larger mound. I was content with the thickened wall and the larger pile across from the marker piles but I always like the big finds. I finally found one large mound, at the highpoint of the site:

A magnificent pile to crown it all. 
After that it was a bit more looking around, here is an interesting feature.

There were actually two piles in the "elbow" of this L-shaped bit of wall. And then back down the brook and heading for home.
Not used to seeing things this close to the brook:

A good day at the beginning of the season: