Town forests

It seems to be a lesser-known fact that many communities in the greater Boston area have forested land set aside for public use.  Many folks regularly visit the Blue Hills Reservation and Middlesex Fells, but a lot of people don't seem to know about the smaller hidden gems within their own towns.  When I lived in Arlington, we had Menotomy Rocks, which was just large enough to provide the feeling of being away from it all.  Now, in Natick, we have the Hunnewell Town Forest.  It's a decent tract of land, which can be appreciated from a Google Earth shot.

I suspect that town forests were common knowledge back in the 1970s.  As evidence I offer the broken-down exercise stations along the trails in Menotomy Rocks.  'Stretch Here'.  'Do Pull-ups Here'.  I remember seeing the same things on trails at UCONN when I was there in the '80s, and they were broken-down then.  People have been moving around a lot over the past decade, or so.  As such, they might ot be aware of things like town forests lurking in their midsts.  That being said, there are a healthy number of people in the HTF whenever I'm there, but not relative to the number of people I see out and about, in general.  Natick is a healthy town.  People walk, run, walk their dogs and stroll their babies.  You can't look out your window for five minutes without seeing someone go by.

One thing missing from our town forest is a decent trail map.  I've walked most (all?) of the trails, as well as the unofficial trails, which look like little more than game paths.  A personal goal of mine is to map them all out with my GPS.  Once done, I'll release it into the public domain.  Our forest is well-maintained.  Blowdowns are quickly cleared.  Natick clearly cares about it, so I want to do my part and create a map.

Comments

[Mark]

I do need to get those maps done one of these days... :-)

Mark

[mcharest]

Mark,

Today I took my first jog throught the trails of the Hunnewell Town Forest after moving to Natick last may. It really is a great spot and just the type of trails I was looking for. I searched for a few hours for a map and you are right that there really isn't a map let alone a decent map.

Good luck mappng out the trails.

Mark