Bear Garden Hill Trail in Walden Woods

BY KATHI ANDERSON

“My thoughts expand and flourish most on this barren hill, where in the twilight I see the moss spreading in rings and prevailing over the short, thin grass, carpeting the earth, adding a few inches of green to its circle annually while it dies within.”

Henry David Thoreau, Journals 11 July 1851

Thoreau’s evocative words describe Bear Garden Hill in Walden Woods -- a place he loved for its beauty, tranquility, and transcendence. In his Journals, Thoreau chronicled his frequent moonlight walks at Bear Garden Hill and at nearby Fairhaven Hill.

Although not as well-known as some of the other conservation sites in Concord, Bear Garden Hill remains a popular destination for local and out-of-town Thoreau enthusiasts, walkers, runners, and those pursuing other forms of passive recreation, including snowshoeing, cross country skiing, and horseback riding. Some are unaware that Bear Garden Hill nearly met its demise from high density development in the late 1980s.

The impending threat to Bear Garden Hill, coupled with a proposed 147,000 square foot office building at Brister’s Hill (very close to Walden Pond), prompted the founding of The Walden Woods Project (walden.org) in 1990. For the past 32 years, our nonprofit organization has preserved and protected the iconic landscapes of Walden Woods in recognition of their worldwide literary, historical, and environmental significance, and their capacity to motivate others to identify, study, and protect the “Waldens” that exist in their own communities. Thoreau’s writings and the landscape that influenced him are highly relevant to critical environmental and social reform challenges of our time.

Courtesy of The Walden Woods Projects

In 1991, Bear Garden Hill became the first site in Walden Woods acquired by our organization. We now protect and steward nearly 200 acres in and around Thoreau’s Walden Woods, including the 18-acre Walden Woods Project Farm adjacent to Bear Garden Hill. Plans are underway to provide public access to Bear Garden Hill from our organic farm via a short connector trail. The trail will run near picturesque agricultural fields, across a small brook, and over to an existing loop trail on Bear Garden Hill. We also hope to provide a few additional parking spaces to augment the parking that currently exists at the Bear Garden Hill trailhead. Further details will become available as plans move forward. In the meantime, we hope you will visit our nearby farm stand when you are at Bear Garden Hill. The farm stand will open for the season in early June. For more information on The Walden Woods Project Farm or to join our CSA, go to walden.org/csa.

The Bear Garden Hill site is located at the western end of Walden Woods, a half mile from Walden Pond, with trailhead access from a small parking area off Sudbury Road in Concord. Parking is located about 100 yards south of the Sudbury Road traffic light at Route 2. The Walden Woods Project owns and manages Bear Garden Hill for public enjoyment and education. In purchasing Bear Garden Hill from developers, our organization entered into conservation partnerships with the MA Department of Conservation and Recreation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Both agencies hold conservation restrictions over Bear Garden Hill.

Courtesy of The Walden Woods Project

A forested loop trail winds through our Bear Garden Hill property. A trail spur connects it with The Walden Woods Project’s Boiling Spring site. Due to its literary significance, its location in the heart of Walden Woods, and its proximity to Bear Garden Hill, the adjoining Boiling Spring property was purchased and is now permanently protected by The Walden Woods Project. The Bear Garden Hill and Boiling Spring sites encompass 42 acres.

The Boiling Spring at Bear Garden Hill was Concord’s coldest and most popular spring from colonial days and a literary symbol for the Transcendentalists. It was so named because it bubbled as it oozed from the earth. Thoreau considered the Boiling Spring one of the wonders of Walden Woods. “There are few really cold springs,” he reflected in his Journal, “I go out of my way to go by the Boiling Spring.” In 1844, water rights to the Boiling Spring were sold to supply the Concord depot with water for the Fitchburg railroad. Thereafter, the spring no longer flowed freely.

The trails at Bear Garden Hill connect with extensive trail systems through other conservation lands protected by the Town of Concord and by the Concord Land Conservation Trust. Public trails lead to the Fairhaven Hill area and the Wright Woods. Fairhaven Hill was one of Thoreau’s favorite destinations and is often referred to in his writings. The Concord Land Conservation Trust also preserves Seton Woods at the base of Fairhaven Hill and The Walden Woods Project stewards some of the surrounding land. However, much of Fairhaven Hill is privately owned and is not publicly accessible.

Courtesy of The Walden Woods Project

An important part of the viewshed from Bear Garden Hill and Fairhaven Hill is also protected by The Walden Woods Project. Through the generosity of a former Concord resident, The Walden Woods Project holds a conservation restriction over 41 acres of land along the wild and scenic Sudbury River, across the river from Bear Garden Hill and Fairhaven Hill. Although not open to the public, the area will be preserved in perpetuity as undisturbed, forested conservation land, thereby protecting valuable habitat and a woodland vista visible from the river and from parts of Walden Woods.

We hope you will have an opportunity to visit Bear Garden Hill and to enjoy this special place that had great meaning to Henry David Thoreau. Fortunately, nature still invites us to hear the message of the wind on Bear Garden Hill, just as it did for Thoreau some 175 years ago:

“The wind now rising from over Bear Garden Hill falls gently on my ear and delivers its message, the same that I have so often heard passing over bare and stony mountain-tops,so uncontaminated and untamed is the wind. The air that has swept over Caucasus and the sands of Arabia comes to breathe on New England fields.” Henry David Thoreau - 5 August 1851

Kathi Anderson is Executive Director of The Walden Woods Project.