New England Trails: Overview

The Evolution of Trail Planning in New England To understand the evolution of trail planning and development in New England, knowledge of its landscape is paramount. The natural history of New England begins nearly half a million years ago when the world had a different continental design. The continental plates were pulled apart through the process of plate tectonics. The continent of Laurentia (North America) and the continent of Gondwana (Africa) collided into each other approximately 480-440 million years ago. When these two great landmasses met with an intense force, the continental collision created the Appalachian Range that separated the area known as New England from the rest of the continent (Roberts, 1996, pp.222-225). Two and half million years ago the area of New England experienced a major Ice Age. The globe cooled down to the point where valley glaciers began to grow. The glaciers then covered mountains and blended into one another enveloping the entire continent. After thousands of years, the globe began to warm and the ice melted and retreated. This process of freezing and melting would occur four times until the last remnants of the Ice Age disappeared nearly 10,000 years ago. When the glaciers receded in New England, the land gained new character. The glaciers left behind kettle holes, drumlins, eskers, moraines and thousands of lakes throughout New England (Roberts, 1996, p. 280). The mountain ranges had been rounded in shape. The melt-water from the glaciers created new ponds and lakes particularly in Maine and New Hampshire. Trees and shrubs began to grow and wildlife soon followed. New England has ten distinct landscape regions (Roberts, 1996, page 401). There are three distinct mountain regions, the Taconic Mountains, the Green Mountains and the White Mountains. There are four individual valley regions, the Berkshire Valley, the Connecticut Valley, the Vermont Valley and the Champlain Valley. New England has coastal lowlands that extend from Connecticut to Maine. The Eastern New England Upland is just west of the coastal lowlands. The Western New England Upland includes western Connecticut, western Massachusetts and eastern Vermont (WBE, Vol. XIV, 1975, p.172b-173). Together these different landscape regions make up a total area of 66,608 square miles (42,000,000 acres) that would soon be officially named New England. Trail development began shortly after the last great Ice Age in New England, 10,000 years ago. Trails naturally emerged on the landscape by deer traveling toward better grazing grounds. The aboriginal people soon followed the deer, enhancing the trails naturally through use. During the seventeenth century European settlers began to widen trails as horses and wagons became a common mode of transportation. As the European population in New England grew, settlers began moving westward into mountainous terrain. This brought about the need for canal building. Food and supplies from Europe were transported inland via canals. This lasted only a short time before the railroads took over New England in the mid-nineteenth century. However, by the mid-twentieth century, many railroads were soon abandoned due to the onslaught of the automobile. The creation of this Comprehensive New England Trail System proposal is a compilation of many single trail proposals. This web page consists of three core sections: 1.) Proposed New England Hiking Trails, 2.) Proposed New England Rail Trails, and 3.) Proposed New England Millennium Trails. The trails proposed in this study are only ones that have New England wide significance. This study proposes the addition of 3 hiking trails, 14 rail trails and 9 Millennium trails.

Map Proposals by Others

Proposals by Study Results