Guided Boston hikes are back!

And this year, there's a twist

Dear Boston,

For the last few months, a lot of you have asked when guided hikes along the Walking City Trail will be back on the radar. Now that we’ve made it through the sticky swelter of July, with the more temperate conditions of later summer and fall within reach, I’m stoked to announce that we are going back into the field! Starting with this first ramble.

On Saturday, August 10th, I will be leading a guided hike from Forest Hills MBTA Station through some of Boston’s most sumptuous and immersive green spaces. But this time, there’s a spicy twist. Until now, guided hikes have stuck to the Walking City Trail route. While this hike will utilize pieces of the WCT, it will also feature verdent territory that’s not part of the trail! From Forest Hills, we’ll mosey through the north side of Arnold Arboretum to connect to Allandale Woods, one of the largest urban wilds in Boston; rich with beauty and oddities. We’ll swing by Allandale Farm for animal sightings and begin the second half of our adventure by revisiting the woods and then climbing Peters Hill for an iconic view of Boston. But on our passage to the summit, we’ll visit a bonus green space that’s literally rippling and buzzing with life. And from the hilltop, we’ll follow the Walking City Trail back to Forest Hills Station.

Altogether, it will be a 5.7-mile loop hike, with a mix of rugged and paved terrain and enough roly-poly territory to earn the hike a solid “Moderate” rating (on the scale of Easy, Moderate, and Challenging.) “Tickets” for this guided hike are donation-based, to support ongoing Walking City Trail projects, and you can sign up by clicking here.

Now, why exactly are we going “off-trail” with this hike? Because Boston’s bounty of gorgeous natural and built environments is far too vast to be contained to a one trail. The Walking City Trail is an example of what a trail connecting several of these spaces can look like. There could be other trails like it! We could create a network of trails, designed at a grassroots level like the WCT, connecting every Boston neighborhood! My fellow trailmakers and I have hinted at this since the beginning, but now that the Walking City Trail resources have been tweaked, honed, and cemented, I’m shifting my focus to the future—and inviting hikers to imagine where other trails could run.

There will be more guided hikes like this upcoming adventure through the arboretum and Allandale Woods! Going forward, they will be announced as single events, usually around two weeks in advance, and the distance of these hikes will mostly be in the 3-5 mile zone. In addition to guided day hikes, there will also be free NIGHT HIKES on the WCT and beyond it, just like the ones I organized this past winter. Compared to the day hikes, these night hikes will be on the shorter side, around 2-ish miles. They will be scheduled for weekday evenings with one week’s notice, and there will be no group size limit for night hikes. You just sign up and show up. It’s as simple as that.

Also: in recent years, I offered group hikes on a seasonal calendar. But in practice, I found that announcing the hikes several weeks in advance led to several participants canceling and work/life scheduling conflicts coming up on my end too. So, these new guided hikes will be scheduled on a rolling basis, with the head times mentioned in the prior graf. (Two weeks’ notice for guided day hikes, one week’s notice for night hikes.) This means that guided hike opportunities are now liable to sprout up at any point in the year! Summer, fall, winter, mud season, you name it. The trails are open.

Lastly, I’ll throw two other chestnuts out there. If you are interested in a guided hike further down the road and there’s nothing on the immediate calendar, there are two additional options. For private groups, I offer commissioned hikes on the WCT and through other Boston green spaces. I have also joined forces with local partners to host free group hikes. Past collaborators have included the Stio store in the Seaport and the Patagonia store in Harvard Square. If you’re interested in either of these two options, please drop me a line at miles@bostontrails.org so that we can brainstorm.

Whether it’s this upcoming ramble or another one, I look forward to seeing many of you out in the field soon, in America’s Walking (Hiking?) City.

~Miles Howard