ACTON — Three Rivers Land Trust will open a new public trail at Hansen Pond Preserve in Acton this Sunday, Nov. 29 at noon. The event is open to the public and attendees can arrive anytime between 12 and 2 p.m. to walk the trail at their own pace. Staff and board members of the Three Rivers Land Trust will be present to greet visitors and answer questions. The trail is 2.4 miles out-and-back, takes approximately one hour and 15 minutes to complete, and will be open year-round to hiking, leashed dog-walking, mountain biking, skiing, snowshoeing and snowmobiling. The trail’s terrain is moderate.
The Hansen Pond Preserve is a rolling landscape of forests, ridges, extensive wetlands, and the unique Hansen Pond: a 30-acre undeveloped pond adjacent to the Little Ossipee River. The property has incredible ecological value and was acquired primarily for wetlands preservation with funding from the Maine Natural Areas Conservation Program. With the opening of this carefully-planned trail, the public can now enjoy a route from H Road to a scenic overlook of Hansen Pond. Three Rivers has also collaborated with the Mousam Valley Snowmobile Club to make this trail accessible to winter snowmobile use as part of their larger trail network.
The new trail winds through hemlocks and pines, traverses old woods roads, runs along an elevated ridge, then connects to older trails through the woods, leading eventually to a fine overlook of Hansen Pond. Three Rivers will work toward creating water access for canoes and kayaks in 2021. Updates on trail and water access at Hansen Pond as well as other projects will be posted on the Three Rivers Facebook page.
Three Rivers sincerely thanks the volunteers and funders who have contributed to this trail effort. Students from the MapleStone School in Acton cut the trail during 2019, making major progress toward trail completion, and also removed a large decrepit structure from the shores of the pond. Work on the trail resumed in fall 2020, and teams of individual volunteers helped to widen and clean up the trail all the way to the pond. Members of the Mousam Valley Snowmobile Club also volunteered to improve the trail, remove stumps, and install signs. The trail and access project received generous support from the Davis Conservation Foundation and the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund. An additional grant from the Fields Pond Foundation will support ongoing stewardship of the property and the trail.
For questions about the event or the trail, please contact 207-358-9695 (call or text) or info@3rlt.org. Updates will be posted on the land trust’s Facebook page, or on their website at www.3rlt.org.
The Three Rivers Land Trust is a membership-supported organization dedicated to building stronger, healthier communities through the protection of wild and working landscapes in Acton, Alfred, Lebanon, Shapleigh and Sanford/Springvale. Named for the Little Ossipee, Salmon Falls, and Upper Mousam Rivers, Three Rivers Land Trust holds conservation easements to protect farms, forests, and wetlands, and maintains preserves which provide recreation and hunting access.