Bear Swamp is a forested parkland in Ashfield, Massachusetts. The Trustees of Reservations owns and maintains the property.
Although Bear Swamp was once a sheep pasture and later a source of cordwood and lumber, it now seems much like an untouched wilderness. The landscape is irregular, well-drained, and covered with nutrient-rich soils. Protected from the elements, hardwood trees such as ash, hickory, basswood, maple, and cherry grow straight and tall.
Three miles (5 km) of trails lead to different parts of the reservation. The Beaver Brook Trail traces the southern rim of a shallow pond and wet meadow where an old beaver dam rests atop an old stone milldam. Although many trees have died in the flooded zone, the water is receding and the forest is returning. The Fern Glade Trail features a variety of ferns and woodland wildflowers. A scenic vista on the Lookout Trail and the hillside meadow at the Apple Valley Overlook both offer views of nearby apple orchards and the Green Mountains of Vermont beyond. Seasonal hunting is permitted at this property subject to all state and town laws.
Read more about Bear Swamp: History
Famous quotes containing the words bear and/or swamp:
“There is a distinction to be drawn between true collectors and accumulators. Collectors are discriminating; accumulators act at random. The Collyer brothers, who died among the tons of newspapers and trash with which they filled every cubic foot of their house so that they could scarcely move, were a classic example of accumulators, but there are many of us whose houses are filled with all manner of things that we “can’t bear to throw away.””
—Russell Lynes (1910–1991)
“We read that the traveller asked the boy if the swamp before him had a hard bottom. The boy replied that it had. But presently the traveller’s horse sank in up to the girths, and he observed to the boy, “I thought you said that this bog had a hard bottom.” “So it has,” answered the latter, “but you have not got half way to it yet.” So it is with the bogs and quicksands of society; but he is an old boy that knows it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)