“It’s a work in progress,” reported Commissioner Chris Cameron, who was building a “trail spreadsheet” as part of the effort. “I put the Pelham trail challenge they did for their town and modeled it after that.
Pelham’s event, the Trail Hike Challenge, offered local hikers a special patch for walking all 20-plus miles worth of trails in that town over the summer.
“It might be nice to have the first people that gain a patch come in so we can give them recognition here at the Conservation Commission,” suggested Commissioner John Walter.
“I believe our trails are all mapped, except for the one Tiger Road,” said Cameron.
It was unclear if this meant their new Tiger Road trail would be excluded from the Challenge, as Commissioners hoped to familiarize hikers. There was also some debate as to whether so-called “spur trails” or unnamed connectors should be included.
“They’re mainly just wildlife use trails and there’s two of them in there less than 500-feet each,” said Vice-Chair Ken Dickinson. “Because they’re just little spurs, they don’t need to be listed.”
Other trails, like the Gumpas Pond Connector, have yet to be completed while others have yet to be properly measured. Everyone agreed that they needed to properly mark and map all applicable trails.
“One of the things we want to make sure of when we move forward with this is that all the trails are marked appropriately and in reasonably good shape,” said Chair Carl Murphy. “We’ll use the honor system; there’s really no other way to track it.”
Town Engineer Elvis Dhima recommended reaching out to the town staff and possibly running segments on Hudson Community TV to advertise the town’s Trail Challenge.
“If you send me the Excel sheet, we can upload it on the Conservation Commission webpage,” Dhima offered. “That’d be good, because I think we have a lot of maps for trails that go up there. Whenever this is ready, I think that’d be good so we can point people to it.”
Commissioners agreed that outreach would be essential for high public participation in the program.
“If somebody goes out and does the whole set, then they have a better understanding of what the woods in Hudson are like and what kind of natural features we have around town,” said Dickinson. “I think it gives a pretty good cross section to what we have, and these are the public trails as opposed to the private ones.”
“Do we want to roll this out in September?” asked Murphy.
After a brief debate, Labor Day weekend was chosen as the starting date for the Trail Challenge in time for the end of summer and the start of the new school year.
The next meeting of the Hudson Conservation Commission is scheduled for Monday, Aug. 11, at 7 p.m. in the Buxton Room of Town Hall.
