QUICK TRAIL FACTS
- Preserve Size: 1,400 acres
- Trail Mileage: 6.3 miles
- Pets: yes
- Difficulty: easy
- Sights: beaver pond, regenerating forest, gravel road
You can head out on a pleasant outing at this massive preserve, which encompasses 1,400 acres on its own, but it is also surrounded by a 25,000-acre undeveloped habitat block, according to the Frenchman Bay Conservancy. The conservancy partnered with Northeast Wilderness Trust to protect the land here.
The flat and easy trail network basically consists of a long, well-made footpath and a wide, wheelchair-accessible gravel road. The land trust map clearly delineates between the two types of trail; it also includes helpful distances for each section. The footpaths (no bikes allowed on these) give you the option to do a couple of lengthy loops through young, regenerating forest and by a beaver pond, where you can can take a break at an observation deck. There’s impressive bog bridging all along the footpaths, as well as large stepping stones to keep your feet dry. The trust offers a detailed description of what to expect on the trail system. If you do both loops, the total distance is about 6.3 miles.
The main gravel road — about three miles one way — passes a few meadows before joining the Downeast Sunrise Trail. It’s in good condition for much of this distance, transitioning into more of a grassy track as it gets closer to the Sunrise Trail. The conservancy says it plans to let the fields return to forest and the existing woods mature into old age. “Sometimes it’s best to just leave the forest alone to allow it to regrow,” says Aaron Dority, executive director of the conservancy, in a video about the project.
“Every place that we protect has the potential to be a future old-growth forest,” adds Sophie Ehrhardt of the Northeast Wilderness Trust. Her organization also connects the land trusts it works with to a voluntary carbon market where they can sell credits from their carbon-absorbing forest preserves, providing them with an additional source of revenue.
Directions: The good-sized parking area (for about six cars, with additional space on the side of the driveway) and trailhead is located off Route 182, on the left, about 1.1 miles north of the junction with Route 1. The main access road to the preserve is blocked by a gate, with enough space on the side to allow pedestrians and wheelchairs.
