The 27-mile community-made trail brings urban hiking to Boston
Alysa Guffey | The Boston Globe | July 24, 2023
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/07/24/metro/boston-walking-city-trail/
Like many fresh ideas in recent years, the inspiration for an official
urban hiking trail in Boston came during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Miles Howard, who would go on increasingly longer walks to feel the “escape of a hike” without leaving Greater Boston.
“We really had to make the most of what we had here in our backyard,” Howard, a freelance journalist who has written forThe Boston Globe, said of his treks in 2020. “These adventures became kind of a pastime during the first year of the pandemic.”
Then, Howard took a hike on the Crosstown Trail, which connects opposite areas of San Francisco through hidden trails, public parks, and shopping corridors. Upon returning to Boston, Howard set out to create a similar path that would use existing parks, streets, and landmarks in the city.
The result was the Walking City Trail, an unofficial trail mapped by Howard through existing walkways that stretches 27 miles across 17 neighborhoods from its origin in Mattapan to its finish at Bunker Hill.
At its core, Howard said urban hiking is defined less by location and more by intention.
“It’s trying to find the most scenically interesting way to get from one spot to an eventual destination that really showcases the full beauty and oddity of a landscape,” he said.
To make the marathon-length course more manageable to complete in chunks, creators split the Walking City Trail into four sections, Howard said.
Spanning 8.3 miles, the first section starts in Mattapan at the Neponset River, heads south into Hyde Park, and winds north before ending in Roslindale Village. The second section picks up at the entrance of the Arnold Arboretum before winding through Jamaica Plain.
Section three weaves through the neighborhoods of Mission Hill, Longwood, and the Fenway before ending at the Charles River. The closing segment threads through Boston Common, Chinatown, and the Leather District before finishing with a walk along the Harbor and a summit of Bunker Hill.
Hikers can enjoy elevated views of the Boston skyline in several locations along the trail, including atop Kevin Fitzgerald Park in Mission Hill, at the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain, and while descending into Roslindale Village.
Although Howard spearheaded the project, the final version of the Walking City Trail was made with feedback from the public on community hikes in 2022 led by Howard and Councilor Kendra Lara, chair of the Environmental Justice, Resiliency, and Parks Committee. Howard said community hikes were vital to bring the trail to life.
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