Young walkers get passports to fun on Lincoln’s trails

By Alice C. Waugh

A new chapter in the story of Lincoln’s conservation trails begins on Sunday afternoon when a group of kids will set off down a path and enter the country (or countryside, anyway) bearing brand-new passports.

The passports aren’t national identity booklets but rather a set of maps and descriptions for seven kid-friendly hikes on Lincoln conservation land, along with suggestions of fun things to look for. At the end of Sunday’s walk—which begins at 2 p.m. at the commuter parking lot behind Donelan’s—the kids will get their passports stamped by Jason Felsch, leader of the Lincoln Junior Hikers, an informal group of kids and adults who go on monthly walks together.

Felsch started the Lincoln Junior Hikers after realizing his own children had more fun on walks in the woods when other kids were along. “Instead of waiting to be carried on your shoulders, they’re running ahead with their friends,” he said. “When there are friends of their own age along, it’s a different experience for the kids.”

After children complete a walk in the passport, they’ll get their passport stamped. Kids who every trail will receive a prize. The group welcomes new members, who can sign up to get notices of upcoming walks via the Lincoln Junior Hikers website. The walk on May 19 will celebrate the group’s third anniversary by helping the Lincoln Conservation Commission clear brush to make a new trail in Lincoln.

Felsch, who was trained as a biologist, has plenty of experience walking in the woods looking for mushrooms with other adults in the Boston Mycological Club or going on walks guided by Tom Gumbart, Lincoln’s conservation director. Felsch thought it would be nice to find some hikes that were a little more kid-friendly—shorter in length and avoiding major roads. Over the past three years, he’s emailed families who signed up with him and led monthly groups as small as half a dozen and as large as 40 or 50, except when the weather is unusually bad.

“I give them a little history of the trail and then people go at their own pace, with parents responsible for supervising their own kids,” he explained. While the children dash around, “the parents chat and just kind of amble along.”

This second edition of the passports was the product of a working group led by Gwyn Loud and Selina Rossiter of the Lincoln Land Conservation Trust. That group also included Felsch and the Lincoln Family Association’s Liz Lieblich, “but the most remarkable contributions came from ecologist and cartographer James DeNormandie,” Felsch said.

There may be a limited number of trails, “but the same trail looks different at different times of the year,” Felsch said. “It’s a different experience every time.”