hapgood wright town forest

This little gem has great hiking trails that offer pond-and wood-views, and a few nice places to have a picnic. The pond has it's share of frogs and wildlife so that it is pretty easy to introduce the little ones to local aquatic life. You might even be surprised by a Great Blue Heron as it takes off after getting it's fill.Winter ice skating and sledding on some of the steeper trails, summer fishing used to provide decent bass, not sure if they still populate the waters here.

I took a hike through here having visited Walden Pond and felt that this area was more in the spirit of HD's philosophy.The trail was marked with stone tablets etched with quotes from HD, and there was a little history of the area known as Bristers Hill, which was farmed by an ex slave.The walk was very pleasant and felt more isolated than around Walden.I stumbled out onto the Cambridge Turnpike and up Hawthorne Lane, which took me to Lexington Rd and the Minuteman Park area, dripping in Revolutionary history.

Hapgood Wright donated this land, consisting of a bit less than 200 acres, to the town of Concord,Mass. way back in 1687, to be held "in perpetuity" as a town forest. Concord was Englands first in-land settlement in the New World in 1635, back when this was Indian territory…it was the frontier….19 miles west of Boston.Although the "Forest" is just a 20 minute walk from Concord Center, it's worth a visit if you are in this area for 2 or 3 days, or if you are visiting Walden Pond in Concord, which is just 1000 yards or so away from the "Forest". This is not a forest in the sense of very large old growth mature trees,however. It's a hilly area, where the underlying soil is quite thin, so the trees have never grown very big…they are merely 50' or 60' in height. There are several unpaved walking trails, it's safe and it's clean, it's never been developed, and you can imagine that town residents such as Thoreau, Emerson,Hawthorne etc. once walked this Forest where the Indians also once hunted. There is a small paved parking area on Thoreau Street, large enough for 15 or 16 cars, and I have never seen it filled...

We downloaded a map from the Concord site, so the 5 and 8-year-old could choose which trails they wanted to follow.

This is _just_ Concord's Town Forest, a lovely bit of land not far from the town center and just across rt 2 from Walden Pond - but this is the "Fairyland" of the Alcotts and their contemporaries. With hiking trails, hills and a small pond, it is a favorite place for a short hike, and especially favored by those with dogs. The hike from the parking lot and around the pond is easy enough for even young children. The pond can get a bit stagnant in hot summer weather; fall is nicest, and spring, with a million frogs singing in the mud, is pretty special, too.