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Date: 1/11/2023
CHESTER – Approximately four dozen people joined the Western Mass. Hilltown Hikers to start the new year off right with a First Day Hike at Chester-Blandford State Forest on Jan 1.
First day hikes first began at the Blue Hills Reservation in eastern Massachusetts in 1992, and have spread throughout the country. Elizabeth Massa, president of the Western Mass. Hilltown Hikers organization, told the group they were joining thousands of people participating in free, guided First Day Hikes in state parks nationwide.
The goal is to “get people out in nature, and do something healthy,” Massa said.
Joining the hike was Thomas Skala of the state Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), who oversees Tolland State Forest. Alec Gilman, an interpretive coordinator with DCR, met the group at the beginning of the hike to congratulate them and hand out First Day Hike caps to group leaders.
Massa said the Western Mass. Hilltown Hikers started eight years ago as friends hiking together. Today, it has 10,000 members, and is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization sponsoring monthly group hikes. The organization is also active in helping to create and clear new trails, including recent work on Round Top Hill in Chester and Tekoa Park in Westfield and Russell.
Massa shared with the hikers some historical perspective on Chester-Blandford State Forest, saying the trail was built mostly by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. A stone fireplace at the corps’ former camp is still standing.
Even with the thaw, First Day hikers had to stop on the trail soon after starting out to put crampons on their boots, if they remembered to bring them, due to the icy conditions.
The park, which is easily accessible with parking on Route 20 in Chester, features a narrow path down to the Sanderson Brook Falls, one of the top five waterfalls in Massachusetts, with a 60-foot drop. On Jan. 1, the falls were raging from the mild weather after heavy snow in Chester. Skala said only two weeks earlier they had been encased in ice.
The hike ended with a toast of sparkling grape juice and party favors.
The next Western Mass. Hilltown Hikers-sponsored group hikes are on Feb. 25 to Kennedy Park in Lenox, and on March 25 to Shatterack Mountain in Russell. For more information, to register, and for trail maps for area hiking destinations, visit westernmasshilltownhikers.com.