Ames Nowell is a 600 acre year-round day use area with most of the recreational activity centered around Cleveland Pond. The pond is very popular with boaters and fisherman. Development includes a picnic area, a large parking area that is usually open on weekends in the summer, a ballfield and about 10 miles of trails along the pond's edge and the surrounding woods.
Some of the park's trails were created many years ago by off road motorcycles and ATVs. These have seen little in the way of upkeep over the years, but this may change as SEMASS NEMBA begins to do trail maintenance. In the Summer of 2005 AmeriCorps volunteers did a lot of trail work in the park. And they returned in the summers of 2006 and 2007. Many gates have been erected on old woods roads leading into the park in an effort to prevent illegal off road vehicle use.
The trail on the eastern shoreline of Cleveland Pond is probably one of the more difficult ones in the park. Much more enjoyable is the path paralleling that one on high ground. It runs from the ballfield to the northern end of the pond.
On the other side of Cleveland Pond there is a fairly mellow trail that leads to a boardwalk and then to another trail that ends on a peninsula that juts out into the center of the pond.
Follow the old woods road that starts at the western end of the dam out to the powerline, then either cross the powerline or climb the hill on your right to find many trails that lead into the backside of the park. These include the ATV/motorcycle trails that I mentioned above. (The park has always been closed to motorized vehicles.) And some of these trails will lead you most of the way around the pond. AmeriCorps main project in 2006 was to build a 150-foot long bridge over a long badly bogged out section of trail on the far western side of Cleveland Pond. (Pictured above.) The addition of this bridge has restored a long abused trail. It has made a long mud bog manageable and, over time, will allow the surrounding forest to heal itself.
Explore the trails in this same westernmost area of the park you'll find many large boulders to ride over. And yes, the trail actually does go over the tops of all of these rocks. in some cases, it might seem like the trail that you're on was designed to find every big rock in the woods and then to ride over it. And in fact, that's the case.
:30%,
Moderate
:30%,
Difficult
:25%,
Caution
:5%
