Sometimes – like during a global pandemic — relief is just steps away from your door.
For example, the town-wide network of walking trails has mitigated for many residents the tedium and frustration mandated by Covid-19 restrictions. Now that the state of emergency has been lifted, the town Trails Committee is gratified that many more residents have discovered the resource so close.
The committee has been consciously raising the trails’ profile over the past year, through social media and special activities. “I think we have been out in front on a lot of these programs,” said Michael Barbehenn, a Trails Committee member since 2010 and chair for the past eight years.
Select Board member Emily Mitchell applauded the effort at a recent board meeting. “I have been really, really impressed over the past year with the social-media outreach,” she commented. “It’s a great service to the community.”
Pre-Covid, Barbehenn related, he and fellow member Clem Larson “discussed a walk list to get the word out to the public. I wanted people to be aware of the work we were doing and the availability of resources.” They also discussed starting a Facebook page.
“We had developed a lot of material over the years,” he continued. “We published a trails guide that we sell on Bedford Day and at town meeting.” Monthly trail walks have been featured for many years, and “those have always had some takers.”
But because of the pandemic, “We had to suspend in-person trail walks, so Clem started doing do-it-yourself walks.”
“Because of this last year, there is absolutely real evidence that the trails are much more used than they used to be,” Barbehenn said, adding, “That includes mountain bikers making their own trails. I think it has been a big success, mobilizing people to get out here.”
About three years ago, Larson said, “We started out trying to advertise the trail walks.” The committee took its promotion to the next level at the onset of the pandemic lockdown, about 14 months ago. “When we had to cancel the monthly trail walks with a leader, I came up with the idea of take-your-own trail walks with maps, directions, and highlights, and sending them out once every 10 days,” less frequently in winter.
The committee has promoted 50 trail walks, which pretty much covers the entire inventory, Larson said. “We will add new trails,” he said, such as a recently-acquired conservation area near the narrow-gauge path off Pine Hill Road, or the Daughters of St. Paul area on the north end of the town. That newly-purchased site is a candidate for Trails Committee bridges.
“They’re out there on the group website (https://www.bedfordma.gov/trails-committee) so anybody can look at the map anytime,” Larson said. Meanwhile, “The Facebook page is growing, which is really nice to see,” Barbehenn said; membership is now at 700. Joining “Bedford MA Trails” is automatic for residents, while applicants from other towns are cleared by group administrators.
The Trails Committee was launched in 2004, thanks to the efforts of Susan Grieb. “I always have been an active hiker, a member of the Appalachian Mountain Club, and I really care about community. And I wanted to make the trails more relevant within the town,” Grieb related. She added that she is “absolutely thrilled” by the committee’s recently raised profile.
Grieb, a member of the Conservation Commission at the time, said she “put together a proposal and presented it to the Selectmen, Conservation Commission, Recreation Commission, to form a Trails Committee and get buy-in from them and participants from any of the other boards.”
The group was initially an adjunct of the Conservation Commission. “There were as many as 12 of us,” Grieb said, including Mark Levine, who is still a member, Lee Evans, and Ralph Hammond. Grieb served as chair for a few years until she embarked on another project, the Bedford Farmers Market.
Adrienne St. John, the recently retired Public Works Department engineer, was instrumental in supporting the committee’s nascent efforts, Grieb said. “She helped make us legitimate.” The group “started identifying trails that needed some work,” as well as potential trail easements from developers and land purchases “that would be important for outdoor recreation as well as conservation value.”
Barbehenn said he discovered the trails as a resource for exercise and recreation soon after moving to Bedford in 2004. “When I first joined the Trails and Land Acquisition Committees, I would study maps of the town and I would be stymied as a runner – I couldn’t do an outer loop of the town. It became obvious to me that this is a broken neighborhood system – people drive to each other’s houses.”
Larson, a Trails Committee member for more than eight years, said Hammond recruited him when the two met casually while on a trail. “Ralph was instrumental in creating the circuit trail – the inner and outer loop,” noted long-term committee member Dan Hurwitz.
The committee’s social media presence began with Google groups. Larson said he has been posting on the Facebook group BedfordmaToday (3,600 members) as well as on the committee’s page. “One of the advantages of Facebook is we get all these ‘likes,’” Larson said. This kind of anecdotal evidence complements other evidence of interest, such as full parking areas near trailheads.
“On the website are all trails and an overview map for context. We want to do something similar for the do-it-yourself walks,” the chairman said. “On the Facebook page, I started posting things like when I take care of a blowdown, before and after pictures, what people say is their favorite path.”
Larson said he hopes eventually the web page is elevated to a level that can produce recommendations from users’ requests, such as, “I want to go on an adventurous walk of more than four miles, or “I want a short walk with no hills.”
He talked about the committee’s efforts at the Wilderness Park conservation area, now accessible via a bridge at the end of Lantern Lane, financed with community preservation money. “It was a couple of years in the making – these things take a while,” he said. “Three of us worked one day a week and we put in 15 bog bridges.”
A bog bridge, Barbehennn explained, “is basically a frame sitting on plastic corrugated tubing. The tubing has a minimal footprint because of Wetlands Protection Act requirements. With the corrugated pipe, water can go under and through.” That also accounts for flood plain, since “a month or two out of the year you would not be able to walk through without bridges.”
There is also a simple bridge structure that Barbehenn called “a four-by-four with a board on top – a mud crosser – just to navigate when the water table rises.”
Barbehenn said he has learned that “there a lot of people who have become terrified of the outdoors. It would be nice to try to do things to counteract that.” He mentioned several effective tick repellents available over the counter.
He also noted the committee’s aspirations for Fawn Lake. “We would like to improve the whole shoreline. You can see stones along the shore where there used to be the edge, and you could just take a load of heavy construction gravel and fill in around the destabilized edge, leaving some of the gaps that are natural.”
The committee has a working relationship with local Scouts, particularly with candidates for the rank of Eagle. Often, “we design them, and the Scouts build them,” crediting member Paul Marcus with the design skills. “One of the things we are very proud of is the kiosk, now also a bike stand, on Lavender Lane.”
Every committee member has a particular strength, he noted. “Mark and Michael do a ton of building,” Hurwitz said. “Harold Ward goes out with his chain saw. Paul also does a ton of work. It’s a really fun committee.
“We always need volunteers,” Barbehenn said. “They can get involved with projects, they can even pick up sticks or walk with trimmers.” And that also means trail users, because “the most important thing is to let me know when there’s something wrong.”
“We have a lot of new residents, people who have had no exposure to New England’s style of governance. They aren’t told that it’s a volunteer-based organization and they need to step up.”
The committee also has promoted a couple of parent-child “hikes for tykes.” Larson said the idea was hatched by the Recreation Department’s program coordinator, Nikki Taylor.
“The original concept was a hands-on activity first and then hike. Because of Covid we couldn’t do anything hands-on. The first one was last fall and then we did another one this spring. We limited participation to seven families because we didn’t want people to get too close.” The walks are designed for kids up to age six; the committee is considering replicating for [ages] 7-11 or 12.
Barbehenn said Larson also “piloted a do-it-yourself scavenger hunt. He printed 20 photos and devised a walk in which the kids try to spot things in the photos and check them off.” Larson said the impetus came from Town Manager Sarah Stanton and Council on Aging Director Alison Cservenschi looking for ways to bring families together. The first destination, in mid-May, was Harvard Pond, near Old Causeway Road. The follow-up was a shorter trek, to the Wilson Mill Pond off Old Burlington Road.
A popular hiking trail at the Old Reservoir
Mike Rosenberg can be reached at [email protected], or 781-983-1763
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