It’s been said that the North Quabbin region served as inspiration for some of H.P. Lovecraft’s bone-chilling tales.
While Lovecraft spent time in the woods of Bear’s Den in New Salem, I think he would have been equally inspired by the similarly named Bearsden Conservation Area in nearby Athol. I’d been to the area once, a few years ago, and thought it would make a good scene for a tale of terror.
I headed there last week for a pre-Halloween hike. Taking a left off of Main Street across from Athol Hospital, I began the steep drive up Bearsden Road. It plateaus at Adams Farm, where the road creeps past the slaughterhouse and into the woods.
I arrived at the parking area, got my gear together and took a few final sips from my Thermos of coffee before heading into the woods. As I hit the trail, another vehicle parked, though I didn’t see anyone exit.
A ways down the trail, I began to hear footsteps behind me. I plodded on without turning to look. When I reached the first fork in the trail, I stopped to take a few pictures, and gave a casual glance back up the trail as I dug through my camera bag for another lens.
There was nobody there.
I must have been hearing the echo of my own steps, I told myself.
Shortly after I resumed my hike, those phantom footsteps returned. This time, I looked.
Still nobody. I began to think of horror movies. If this were one, I’d be the solo hiker who meets his grisly end before the opening credits — the breakfast of some ancient evil, freshly awoken from a 150-year slumber. Its main course likely some group of teens having a weekend party at the cabin I passed. Would I have time to carve a dire warning into a tree before I perish?
That’s just in the movies, I tell myself, and trudge on through the fallen leaves. I reach a clearing with a single, gnarled old tree in the center. Like many of the old or dead trees in these woods, it was pulled straight from a horror movie.
Several parts of its bark resemble faces, so I dubbed it the Tree of Tortured Souls. I took several pictures, holding my off-camera flash at different angles, but none of them quite do it justice.
Once I was finished, I headed onward, through what the trail map calls the Deep Cut Gorge — a passage through a rock outcropping that juts toward the sky. Several trees cling to its crest, their roots dangling in mid air where the soil gave way. The wispier ones resemble cobwebs in a long-forgotten attic.
Past the rock cut, the trail forks again. I stayed to the right, and head downhill. Open patches of sky signal a clearing, and I saw two places that have been nearly clear-cut. The trail, lined with a stone wall thin border of still-standing trees, goes through the middle of the cutting. On the north side, numerous other old walls almost blend into the gray of the logs left behind.
Judging by the sky, I noticed I had about an hour left until sunset. I’d started my hike about an hour before, so I decided it was time to head back. The map marked a viewing platform on a hilltop near the parking lot, and I figured I might have time to catch sunset from there.
On my way back, as I’m examining a face-like feature in the rock cut, a sudden voice at my side informs me that I’ve hit the two-mile mark.
I nearly jump out of my skin in the time it takes to realize it’s just my phone’s hiking app. After a good laugh at myself, I continued on, back past the Tree of Tortured Souls, an on to my car. I stopped for another sip of coffee, and headed for the hilltop.
About halfway there, the trail seemed to turn into a deer-run, the woods folding back on themselves. Scanning for trail markers, I saw none. Retracing my steps, I heard something scurry through the underbrush nearby.
After a couple minutes without a marker, I imagined myself stuck out in these unfamiliar woods at night, just in time for my hiking app to speak up and scare the daylights out of me again. Apparently I’ve gone four miles. Since it was a round-trip, I’d only explored about one fifth of Bearsden’s trails.
A little later, I managed to find the trail — I’d missed a sharp turn. I got to the viewing platform in time for sunset and to my chagrin realized that it faces northeast. Turning around, I saw that the setting sun is obscured by trees. After a couple minutes taking in the past-peak-foliage view, I headed back to my waiting car.
While I made it back unscathed, I can’t promise you the same fate, should you head into those woods on this All Hallows Eve.