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Date: 10/27/2021
EASTHAMPTON – Work has begun on North Trailhead Park, a new trail in Easthampton that will also serve as an access point to Mt. Tom.
“I hope this will be a place that anybody could park their car and go up for a leisurely stroll,” said Easthampton’s City Planner Jeff Bagg.
The project is a group effort in collaboration with the Kestrel Land Trust and the Pascommuck Conservation Trust. “We have a partnership here that goes beyond just me or the Planning Department,” Bagg explained.
They acquired 23 acres of land with the help of the Community Preservation Act and the Parkland Acquisitions and Renovations for Communities (PARC) program. PARC is a state grant program that assists cities in acquiring land for recreational purposes.
“We’re lucky to have a lot of support from the PARC program,” Bagg said. “We needed their support and funding along with our CPA committee who generously funded all aspects of this program.”
Bagg had hoped construction for the project would have begun over the summer, but the project experienced an unexpected surveyance from the Massachusetts Historical Commission.
“We were aiming to start in June or July, but the Historical Commission wanted us to do an archaeological survey of the property to make sure the site wasn’t used for Native American settlements or anything like that,” he explained.
Ultimately the Historical Commission found nothing and gave the project the go-ahead. “We put the project out for bid in August, and once we found a contractor we had a preconstruction meeting in September. We began work in early October and hope to have it completed by June 2022,” said Bagg.
Input from community members was helpful in planning what the open space could be used for.
“We talked about this space having food trucks and being like an amphitheater with a stage for music and everyone said no, it should be a much more natural kind of area. So there’ll be a couple of picnic tables and a seating area up top and that was based on public input,” he said. The trailhead goes through a restored meadow and leads to a picnic area that overlooks the Oxbow.
Bagg said one of their key goals is to meet the requirements for an accessible trail. “There’ll be a handicap accessible loop trail. The trail itself will be five feet wide with compacted gravel that’s leveled so that someone with mobility issues can traverse up gently to reach the overlook of the Oxbow, Bagg explained.
The North Trailhead Park is intended for hikers and community members alike. “The idea is by opening up the site to the public we can cater to different user groups. So people who might not normally go hiking have access to this unique site and for more avid hikers this becomes a new trailhead for the New England Scenic Trail,” he stated.
Construction will continue until winter and will resume again in the spring to reach the projected opening date. For more information on the North Trailhead Park Project, visit the Planning Department’s website at https://easthamptonma.gov/424/Mt-Tom-North-Trailhead-Park.