National
Trails Day, Great Brook Farm State Park
Merlin
/ NEMBA Trail Care Event
in
partnership with REI, Inc. and the Massachusetts DCR
 Carlisle,
MA. June 4, 2005. The New England Mountain Bike Association
celebrated the American
Hiking Society's National Trails Day at Great
Brook Farm State Park by constructing a 120' boardwalk
though the dense and deep Tophet Swamp. The Merlin
/ NEMBA Trail Care project, funded by the Department of
Conservation & Recreation's Recreational
Trails Program, created a new singletrack trail extention
of the Tophet Loop trail. Through a partnership with Merlin
Metalworks and REI, Inc,
thirty-two volunteers (including a handful of hikers)
donated 222 volunteer hours to the park, and created a
new trail that will benefit Great Brook Farm's visitors.
Come experience the new trail on July 10th when we hold
Harpoon-Topeak
MTB Adventure at Great Brook, a fundraiser for the
park.
NEMBA
proposed this project in order to rationalize the trail
system at Great Brook Farm. The main loop trail
at Great Brook --the Pine Point Loop-- is a thoroughfare
used intensively by casual walkers, dog walkers, equestrians,
trail runners and cyclists. It is a wonderful trail, but
frequently congested. NEMBA's goal was to help the park
disperse use (especially by those seeking more remote
trail experiences) by improving the park's "stacked
loop" trail system. The goal was to create a
complete loop away from Pine Point instead of the existing
out-and-back trail. NEMBA proposed the idea in the summer
of 2003, and constructed Phase I and Phase II of the trail
the following year. The most challenging aspect of the
project was making the final connection to the Pine Point
Loop, crossing the Tophet Swamp. Appropropriately,
"tophet" means "hell." Ranger Ray
Faucher and NEMBA submitted and received wetlands approval
from the Carlisle Conservation Commission in the fall
of 2004, and NEMBA volunteers cleared the swamp corridor
during the winter -- the only feasible time to prep the
swamp without disrupting the wetlands.
To
fund the project NEMBA applied for a Recreational Trails
Program Grant in the summer of 2003. The grant paid for
the arsenic-free pressure treated lumber and hardware
used to cross the Tophet Swamp, and Littleton Lumber (one
of whose owners has a personal connection with the park)
generously offered NEMBA a significant discount on the
materials. Washington-based REI Inc. offered to partner
with NEMBA for this event, promoting the project through
its four stores in the Boston area, sending staff to help
work, and providing lunch and T-shirts to all the volunteers.
Using
the boardwalk
design created by NEMBA trail expert, Mike Tabaczynski,
thirty-two volunteers came out on National Trails Day
to install the boardwalk, and more than 220 hours of volunteer
labor and over $3500 were donated to the park during this
National Trails Day event (not counting Phase I and II
of the Tophet Loop Trail construction). The entire Tophet
extention required 460 volunteers hours over the course
of four days.
This
National Trails Day project highlights the need for detailed
planning (starting more than two years ago), productive
partnerships between non-profits and land management agencies,
as well as private partnerships with organizations like
Merlin Metalworks, REI and Littleton Lumber. Together,
we have made a significant impact to improve this park
for everyone. We pass on our thanks to everyone involved:
the staff at Great Brook Farm State Park, the Department
of Conservation & Recreation, REI, Inc., Littleton
Lumber, the American Hiking Society, and to all of NEMBA's
trail crew leaders and the volunteers who made this possible.
--Philip Keyes, Great Brook Farm SP NEMBA Liaison |
