A new 20-mile trail aims to put Fall River's Bioreserve 'on the map' for hikers

FALL RIVER — Standing among decades-old pines and cedars near 2929 Blossom Road, as orange and yellow leaves danced through the air led by a gentle autumn wind, local officials reminded a group of hikers and nature lovers that they were standing in a city.

“Everybody thinks of Fall River as the inner city,” said Paul Ferland, the city's director of community utilities. “There’s also this other half of Fall River out here.”

The city recently marked the opening of a new hiking trail in the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve — a 20-mile path taking visitors on a tour through all the natural landscapes found in the city’s forested eastern half.

The timing coincided with the 20th birthday of the Bioreserve itself, a 16,000-acre tract of protected water and land that both protects the Watuppa and Copicut watersheds and is free for anyone to use to hike, run, bike, or enjoy the quiet scenery.

“That’s what we want in Fall River: recreation," said Mayor Paul Coogan. “People have to understand that this is part of our city. Come out and use it whenever you want. Take a walk. Watch the world go by in a much more peaceful setting and enjoy some free time for yourself.”

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The Bioreserve Loop Trail is 'an effort of love'

From the Watuppa Reservation headquarters on Blossom Road, what's now known as the Bioreserve Loop Trail winds its way through the forest and past old stone walls in a massive 20-mile circuit. Visitors can walk through the Copicut Woods land owned by the Trustees of Reservations, to Copicut Reservoir near Dartmouth, through areas known as Boiling Spring and the Cedar Swamp, then head north along the Freetown border, west to the Ledge, and back.

City forester Mike Labossiere said hikers are welcome to tackle the whole loop at once if they’re up for it. But the Bioreserve Loop Trail is actually not a new trail but a series of smaller, already existing trails newly connected to each other — that makes it easy for new hikers to do a little at a time.

“We didn’t want to create new trails, because it’s a bioreserve,” Labossiere said. “We’re trying to protect biodiversity … and wetlands.”

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The effort to create the Bioreserve Loop Trail involved more than just drawing a line on a map connecting trails. City staff and volunteers from the Appalachian Mountain Club Southeastern Massachusetts chapter spent every Tuesday since April, weather permitting, making sure this trail was clear and well-marked with blazes — patches of blue paint on trees marking the route.

“They did the blazing — 20 miles, both sides of the trees — cleared the trails, fixed what needed fixing, a little bit of rerouting over wet areas,” said Diane Simms, chair of AMC’s SEM chapter.

Their work even involves some light carpentry — perpetually wet areas will need four wooden bridges, which the club is also paying for.

“They’re still finishing up,” Simms said. “SEM did the work building bridges. Actually, one of our leaders is building the bridges at home and going to implement them here."

Labossiere said University of Massachusetts Dartmouth intern Ren Aguiar created a logo for the Bioreserve Loop Trail that was incorporated into signs that, like the blazes, help visitors know where they’re going.

“This is an effort of love — love for the city, love for nature, love for this community,” Labossiere said.

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Putting Fall River's Bioreserve 'on the map'

The idea for the BLT came to Labossiere after reading an article by the Trustees of Reservations that highlighted must-see outdoors hotspots statewide. The Bioreserve was among them, but it’s such a vast space with so many trails that he felt it could seem overwhelming to newcomers.

“It didn’t have an identity," Labossiere said. “This became a call to distinguish the Bioreserve with a signature trail.”

You don’t have to walk the whole route in one shot, but James Hartman of Taunton is among the first to have done it. He said he and his wife completed the BLT in seven and a half hours.

"I never hiked 20 miles before, and it was an experience,” he said. “It was something that you don’t normally get in a hike.”

“It’s really going to put on the map as far as major trail experiences in the state," Labossiere said.

Making the trail 20 miles long also honors the efforts to create the Bioreserve 20 years ago. A land deal first devised over two decades ago exchanged 300 acres of property in the state forest to develop an office park in the northern part of the city — in exchange, thousands of acres of land were granted conservation restrictions, preserved in perpetuity. The acreage amounts to about half of Fall River by area. The Bioreserve is owned and managed by a patchwork of organizations, including the city of Fall River's Water Department, the state Department of Conservation and Recreation, the Trustees of Reservations, the state Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, and the Buzzards Bay Coalition.

That perpetual preservation of half the city's resources is crucial, Labossiere said. “A healthy ecology, healthy biodiversity, enhances our quality of life, protects things that are important to us, and gives us a place for nature and to find peace,” he said.

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Anna Thomas stepped through crunchy piles of bright orange leaves, and declared the day “perfect.”

“I’m happy I'm here," she said. Thomas, who works at Mass in Motion, had visited the Quequechan River Rail Trail in downtown Fall River but never visited the Bioreserve before. “That was nice too, but not like this. This is better — completely different and better.”

With the new trail to show off, Labossiere said the city has plans to hold workshops to get more Fall River residents out there, teaching them how to enjoy the beauty of their forest safely. They've also been partners with the AMC, which has held at least one and sometimes two group hikes in the Bioreserve every month since 2021. Their hikes are free, appropriate for most skill levels including newcomers, and guided with multiple leaders so there’s no getting lost.

“What we’re hoping for is to start getting more families out here,” Simms said.

Plans to build a Bioreserve Discovery Center are closer to materializing, Labossiere said, which would be a visitors center with maps, information and more.

“That’s when it’s really going to grow,” said Sarah Labossiere, of Mass in Motion. “And the more people we can get out here to be using it responsibly, the more protected it will remain.

“For the city residents to understand, this is for them — that's important.”

Dan Medeiros can be reached at [email protected]. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to The Herald News today.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Southeastern Mass. Bioreserve opens 20-mile hiking trail in Fall River