Issues → March/April 2007 → Feature Stories →

Secret Places: Quabbin Wilderness, Massachusetts

Quabbin's magnificent forest in Swift River Valley

by Paul Rezendes

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I first saw Quabbin reservation in my early twenties, though at the time I didn't know its name. I enjoyed riding my motorcycle from Westport, Massachusetts, out to the Mohawk Trail as far as North Adams, often traveling along Route 122 through the north end of Quabbin. I considered it to be the most beautiful section of road along the way. Coincidentally, in my late twenties, I purchased a home and property in the town of Orange, adjacent to the Metropolitan District Commission's Quabbin landholdings.

From then on, and for many years, I spent most of my spare time in Quabbin.

Although the history of Quabbin is fascinating -- four towns in the Swift River Valley were purposely inundated to provide clean drinking water for Boston -- that is not what attracted me to the place. I started out as a wildlife photographer, and Quabbin was replete with wildlife -- beavers, otters, fishers, great herons, wild turkeys, coyotes, foxes, and especially deer. My wife and I founded a nature school, and for nearly 20 years we conducted many tracking programs in the Quabbin woodlands.

As my photography evolved, my interest shifted to the landscape, where, as I followed the rivers and streams, explored the forests, and meandered along the shores of the reservoir, I discovered some of the best panoramic overviews in southern New England.

Quabbin has offered me solitude and a place for reflection. I have enjoyed venturing off into a deeply wooded section with absolutely no destination in mind, just letting the forest invite me into its secret places. I would sit and observe my wandering thoughts, letting my mind take me wherever it wanted, until there was no one on the journey and no one in the forest -- just the Quabbin woods.

The Beauty of Gate 29

I have hiked the Gate 29 road off Route 202 in New Salem, Massachusetts, at the north end of Quabbin, more than any other. One night, a friend and I hiked the 2.5 miles to the end. A full moon bathed the fields with a bright, eerie light. We hid ourselves in the shadows as I got ready to howl in an attempt to call some coyotes into view to photograph them. Before I could even sound a note, they appeared in the field before us.

Wildlife viewing and the possibilities for photography are endless. At the first four-way intersection, the sentinel sugar maples on the right beckon you into a time long ago. Farther down the road and east along the power lines, the climb to the top of Rattlesnake Hill rewards you with a rare panoramic view looking east and south over the reservoir and its surrounding forests.

For solitude, there is a hidden wetlands just east of the Gate 29 road, between the four-way intersection and the power lines, where otters play and that beavers call home. On the west side of this wetlands is the largest single-stem white pine in Quabbin. The very end of the road leads you to the edge of the great waters of the reservoir, where the path simply disappears into its depths.