This route features Bare Hill Pond in Harvard, Massachusetts. In our travels we will pass Fruitlands, a utopian experiment from the mid 1800s, and we will enjoy the spectacular view from the ridge on Prospect Hill before we descend to Bare Hill Pond. We will explore the off-road trails on the west side of the pond as well as visiting two beaches. Our return route passes through historic Harvard Center on the way back to our starting point.

We will meet at the soccer field (not the baseball field) parking lot on Depot Road near #56. Click on the map below to go to MapQuest for directions.

Click on the route map below for full size view.

Bare Hill Pond 1   Bare Hill Pond 2

"Leaving the Nashua, we changed our route a little, and arrived at Stillriver Village, in the western part of Harvard, just as the sun was setting. From this place which lies to the northward, upon the western slope of the same range of hills on which we had spent the noon before, in the adjacent town, the prospect is beautiful, and the grandeur of the mountain outlines unsurpassed. There was such a repose and quiet here at this hour, as if the very hillsides were enjoying the scene."

- Henry David Thoreau, "A Walk to Wachusett," Thoreau's Complete Works, (Boston, 1929), p.151.
 

Fruitlands

The few months between June of 1843 and January of 1844 were some of the most important of Amos Bronson Alcott’s life.  These were the months he and his family spent living in a utopian community he had cofounded to enable himself and his followers to create an example of perfect Transcendental living.

http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/ideas/fruitlands.html