According to information I found on the Internet, the first National Trails Day was held on 5 June 1993, so this year marks the 21st anniversary of this event, which is held on the first Saturday in June.  As someone who has worked off and on maintaining hiking trails, I knew about the day and was eager to join an activity again this year.  Luckily, the Greater Worcester Land Trust decided to sponsor a hike along the Mid-State Trail, which I was familiar with due to my work at Sibley-Warner in Spencer, but which I had never been on.  I emailed Mary that I wanted to participate and would attempt the ten miles from Charlton to Spencer.

At 12:30, I arrived at Greenville Street, then we car-pooled to where the hike was scheduled to begin, off Boucher Drive in Charlton.  The Land Trust is currently involved in a project in this area, because of the Gunter Estates development, a 200-acre parcel off Old Worcester Road.  A short section of the Mid-State runs through the area slated for development, which is not unusual for this trail; as the website states, the Trail is on approximately 45 miles of public land, 30 miles of private land and 17 miles of roadway.  The Mid-State Administrators could challenge the developer’s rights to close the trail, but in all likelihood, it will be re-routed, and the Land Trust’s involvement will facilitate the negotiations around this issue.

Our group of about 10 hikers started out shortly after 1 pm, almost immediately crossing Route 20 via the Cow Tunnel, and although it was quite hot, we kept a steady pace.  We drank a lot of water and paused to re-charge with trail mix and cookies whenever we needed to.  The Trail is not always clearly marked, but we followed the yellow blazes and managed to keep heading in the general northerly direction.

Volunteers maintain the trail.

Keep looking for the yellow blazes.

Many sections of the trail are on wide, level, multi-purpose paths.

We’re beyond the mid-point of our hike, so we’re confident we’re going to make it.

At about a quarter to six, when we crossed Greenville Street, we could see that the end was in sight. It was only a few hundred more yards to the terminus, where we met up with other folks who had been hiking the trails on the Sibley-Warner property, and then we all enjoyed a cook-out. I had not done this type of hike in a while, and considering that I had been up since 4 am and couldn’t speak due to a bad case of laryngitis, it was especially challenging. Let’s say that being outdoors on this beautiful June day inspired me to go the distance.

At 8:30 this morning, I parked my car on Beaumont Road in Worcester and walked around the corner to Kirkland Street, where I met up with a group of volunteers from the Greater Worcester Land Trust.  Two staff members had arrived first, then the rest of us straggled in; we were a small group of about ten — young and old, men and women.

I thought the undeveloped land in this area was all owned by Mass Audubon, as it seems to be contiguous with the Broad Meadow Brook Sanctuary, but apparently the GWLT holds a conservation restriction on this parcel where we were working:

I’ve done this Earth Day cleanup before, and each time I swear I won’t do it again, but here I was, holding a large yellow trash bag and removing what seemed like the dregs of western civilization.  I still can’t believe that people care so little about their surroundings that they would just toss this stuff into the woods.  We worked steadily along Kirkland for a couple of hours, until we filled an entire dumpster with the trash we collected, everything from leaking propane tanks to car batteries to tires to lawn figurines.  Then after we called for the dumpster to be hauled away, we moved over to the end of Dunkirk Avenue, which is a trail-head entrance to the Sanctuary, where hikers and strollers can enter the property via the Cardinal Trail.  At first I thought the area wasn’t that bad, but as we moved just a short way into the woods, I saw all the glass, mostly broken of course.   I filled a trash bag so full of glass that it began to break as I hauled it to the edge of the street for pickup.  There was a lot more that we left behind, because eventually we ran out of time.

So it was a warm, beautiful day, and I guess I should feel some satisfaction in a “job well done” but I still despair of how careless people can be and how oblivious to any sense of stewardship.  So people, please think twice about how you dispose of trash.  Remember the three Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  We only have one earth.