Participate-VolOps1

Trail Adopter Bob Weggel, on the Stone steps of the Skyline Trail

TRAIL MAINTENANCE

ADVOCACY

TRAIL ADOPTER PROGRAM

Important "Langwood Commons" Update here.

Simpson Housing hires Big Dig lobbyists

According to records obtained from the office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth Simpson Housing company spent more than $60,000 for lobbyists in 2005 and 2006.

Simpson Housing is attempting to obtain approval from the state to construct 450 housing units at the former hospital site surrounded by the Middlesex Fells Reservation.

The report shows that Simpson paid almost $30,000 to Holland & Knight lobbyists for work related to Stoneham real estate development. An additional $31,500 was spent by the developer to O’Neill & Associates in part to “foster relationships in districts where Simpson Housing Limited Partnership proposed developments.”

The Simpson contract with O’Neill also included paying for lobbying efforts to influence passage of new legislation designed to protect Massachusetts’ historic parkways. This house bill was overwhelmingly approved for passage by the legislature by the Joint Committee on Environment only to get buried in the House Ways & Means office.

Fells Protection Campaign Continues

An important part of the mission of the Friends of the Fells is to advocate for the protection of the Reservation by enlisting public support and partnering with other local conservation groups. The Friends encourage active support to help us protect and preserve this precious resource and we hope you will become active at whatever level of interest you choose.

The Friends have worked for more than six years to contest the Stoneham Executive Center and now the "Langwood Commons" development and other intrusions into the Fells. We have solicited community (and your) support, retained legal and technical experts and presented our case to the media and the courts.

In these six years the Massachusetts Environmental Affairs Office has ruled four times that the developers must reduce the scale of the project at the old hospital site to prevent damage to the park, historic parkways and our communities. This is due in large part to the more than 4,000 comment letters sent in by citizens saying 'no!' to big development in the Fells. To learn more or to help this effort call 781-662-2340 or email friends@fells.org.

Such a huge development project would destroy the beauty of the Fells and create unacceptable environmental impacts to our park and historic parkways.

Please join in our continued efforts to ensure that only responsible development occurs at the old hospital site across from Spot Pond.

More Advocacy issues here.

On Saturday June 9 a team of high school students from Lexington headed out to the trails in the Middlesex Fells for a day of restoration work. With able leadership from the Appalachian Mountain Club’s Boston Chapter Trails Committee crew leader, Mark Levine and seasoned trail expert Bob Weggel plus DCR’s seasonal visitor services supervisor Mike Arnott the students tackled some challenging and much needed trail repairs. In his follow up letter to the students supervisor Mike Arnott congratulates the students for their hard work:

Dr. Avon Lewis,

"I understand you are the person responsible for sending 11 hardworking 9th graders to the Middlesex Fells Reservation last Saturday. They weren't’t all enthusiastic at 8am but they all got into the spirit once out on the trail. We restored several hundred feet of trail coming off a steep hill that were badly eroded. Much of the trail was 6 to 12 feet wide and parts of the trail were doing double duty as a stream bed. The students turned a “delta” of four paths into one well defined path where the trail meets a fire road. Working with five adult volunteers they narrowed and hardened the trail and built several new drainages, scree walls (large rocks and boulders used to define trail boundaries), and rock steps.

This was much needed work in our ongoing efforts to balance the interests of both the park’s conservation and recreation mandates. Community service volunteers are an indispensable part of what makes our urban parks work for both people and nature."

A grant from the DCR has funded the Friends of the Fells purchase of an excellent supply of trail maintenance

equipment, trail signs, and trail blaze paints. Friends of the Fells trail

crew volunteers are in the process of restoring all 35 miles ofnamed single track hiking trails in the Fells. This is a mighty task. An organized, ongoing system of volunteer trail maintenance is necessary to get the trails in shape and keep them in shape. The AMC (Appalachian Mountain Club) has a well structured Trail Adopter program that has been “adopted” by the Friends of the Fells to do the job of keeping the trails in shape once they have been restored.

Each Trail Adopter adopts a section of hiking trails that can be from 1/2 to a couple of miles long. An Adopter group can be as small a one person but usually no more than four people (if more than one person, one person will be the contact person and trail Adopter of record). Trail Adopters go out to their adopted trails three times a year to clean and repair drainages, stepping stones, rock steps and treadways, brush in (closing detours) and brush out (pruning where trails are narrower than four feet wide), replace missing trail signs, and refresh trail blazes as needed. Trail Adopters should be able to commit to maintaining their section of Middlesex Fells hiking trails for at least three years.

In coordination with the DCR, the state agency with overall responsibility for the park, Friends of the Fells Volunteer Coordinator Michael Arnott will supervise the assignment of “adopted” trails, verify that all Trail Adopters know the basic trail maintenance skills and safety rules, and oversee an annual survey of all single track hiking trails in the Middlesex Fells.

You can make a huge difference in maintaining a natural look and feel of our Fells hiking trails. Just give Mike Arnott a call at 781.662.2340 or email him to begin planning out the route you, and maybe your friends and family too, would like to maintain. Thank you.

Former Hospital Site at Spot Pond

Boston Regional Medical Center 1998

"Langwood Commons" housing project proposal

Before: Rock work under way

After: Solid rock steps in place for hikers

Bird Meadow Restoration at 90 mm Site

The 90 mm Site, just north of Ramshead Hill in the Lawrence Woods section of the Middlesex Fells is named after the Massachusetts 90 mm anti-aircraft gun site that occupied the location from 1951 to 1958. After the unit was relocated the site was maintained as a meadow habitat for birds and butterflies.

Due to insufficient park staffing levels the site became over grown with saplings, bushes, and tall grasses. Friends of the Fells volunteers working with Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) rangers have begun restoring the meadow. Trees under three inches in diameter are being cut with hand tools, and we are creating brush piles which are an important habitat for many small bird and mammal species.

To visit the 90 mm Site take the Cross Fells Trail from the parking area across from Gate 8 on South Border Road towards Ramshead Hill in Lawrence Woods. If the Gate 8 parking area is full there are several more parking spaces up the road at the Gate 9 parking lot. The meadow is easily reached from a short trail off the fire road on the north side of Ramshead Hill.