COVER STORY
Where there’s a will, there’s a trail: Midstate Trail is a ‘massive team effort’ VEER MUDAMBI
providing a hidden escape into the forest for anyone who knows he Midstate Trail is one of where to look. Worcester county’s best “The nature of Worcester kept secrets — and the county is different now,” said Greater Worcester Land Novick. In the late ‘50s and early Trust wants to let you in on it. ‘60s, most of the area was owned The trail passes through some by farmers willing to make of the most beautiful scenery in informal agreements regarding Central Massachusetts and offers a path through their property. truly spectacular views. “Nowadays, it’s office parks and The 92-mile hiking trail subdivisions and you need more has come a long way, both than a handshake with an old geographically and historically. farmer who loves the land and But on any long road like this, wants others to see it.” hurdles, bumps and full-on There’s also been an increase roadblocks are not only likely, in suburbanization in the more but inevitable. rural areas along the trail. “With So how has the Midstate Trail that comes landowners who lasted this long? “A massive team buy a house on their half-acre effort,” said Colin Novick of the and then they get the ‘not in my GWLT, which joined back in backyard’ attitude about people 2000 with the Green Mountain walking by their house,” said Club and the Worcester Chapter Mike Pekar, chairman of the of the Appalachian Mountain Midstate Trail Committee. Club to create the Midstate Trail With these changes, the Committee. MTC has begun an ongoing The MTC’s primary purpose project of pursuing more official is to maintain the trail — both protections and agreements for physically through volunteer the trails, that can be depended labor and bureaucratically on to stay in place even as by protecting the land from ownership shifts. There are a few development. The latter is often different tools to secure the land the more complex of the two, for trail use and which one is since the trail crosses large tracts chosen depends on the situation. of private land and relationships The most common is a trail must be maintained with easement, where an agreement individual landowners, ensures that the land stays as something that has grown part of the owner’s property, markedly more complicated in allowing the MTC or GWLT to recent years. maintain the trail for hiking. Last month, the state These are very convenient Conservation Partnership agreements, but they aren’t free. Program provided a $10,215 The CPP grant to the GWLT grant — via the GWLT — to the allowed for the purchase of Midstate Trail specifically for the an easement which secured a purpose of trail conservation. vital crossing on Route 9. For a The Midstate dates back to trail that extends as far as the the 1920s when it was just a well- Midstate, crossing highways trodden path connecting Mount can present a problem, and the Wachusett, near Princeton, CCP grant secured the north and Mount Watatic, near side of Route 9. The south side, Ashburnham. It fell into disuse Polar Springs Road, was already shortly after World War II, until settled through an earlier Mass an initiative by the Worcester Audubon easement. “To ensure County Commissioners led that the trail survives, we need A Midstate Trail marker seen on the Balance Rock Trail, a section of the Midstate Trail to its current, more complete good crossings,” said Novick. incarnation as a trail across the A similar agreement, in in the Wachusett Mountain Reservation. entire county in the late 1970s, that the landowner retains RICK CINCLAIR
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WORCESTERMAGAZINE.COM
D E C E M B E R 24 - 30, 2020
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