Ellisville Harbor Easy Walk to Rare Coastal Views

A flat, dirt trail through the woods.

 Guest Post! With permission for our Easy Walk friend, Marjorie Turner Hollman, here is her excellent post about an opportunity to experience an undeveloped coastal area and observe seals near Plymouth, Massachusetts.  Please note this is not a wheelchair accessible trail but does offer an easy walk to an overlook.                                                                                                                                      This was our second visit to Ellisville Harbor State Park in Plymouth, MA. On our first visit in August, we were led to believe the path to the shoreline was at least a mile. Since my “on foot” range is about two miles, this would leave no energy for actually walking on the beach. We chose to head on, and ended up at Shifting Lots Preserve, another open space quite nearby. We returned to the state park on a cool day in December, and decided to try reaching the beach. Turns out, the trail is closer to a half mile out, well within my capabilities when the weather is cool outside.

Whiting Street Reservoir - An Easy Hike in Holyoke

Along Whiting Street Reservoir

April weather is drawing more people into the outdoors and last week I had the pleasure of being welcomed to a new place for me, Whiting Street Reservoir in Holyoke. Sarah Wedaman, local mother of a child with a disability, invited me to check out this favorite place to jog with her son in his stroller. We met on a sunny, warm afternoon and circled the reservoir in an hour and a half on a pleasant stroll.

Roadside parking is at the end of Mountain Park road in Holyoke, off Route 5. There are no designated accessible parking spots and no bathrooms or buildings at this popular location. Best times to go are during the weekdays when you can park close to the gate on relatively level pavement. Recently paving around the gate has created an accessible entry. To go around the reservoir - which is not visible from your car - choose to walk the uphill road. (The downhill choice enters the Mt. Tom Ski Area.) The paved road has a long gradual grade uphill and a steeper descent alongside noisy I-91 before you arrive on flat ground next to a  portapotty (not wheelchair accessible), which I found very clean inside.

Easy Walks and Hikes in the Connecticut River Valley

The cover of Marjorie's recently
 published book. 

Easy walks and hikes are in ever higher demand as people age and yet there are too few ways to find out about them. Marjorie Turner Hollman provides a handy reference to Easy Walks (a term she has coined) in south central Massachusetts through her publications. Her latest book, "Finding Easy Walks Wherever You Are" provides essential information to help you seek out Easy Walks close to home, especially timely for the pandemic.

Marjorie has a few disabling conditions that make her an excellent measure of what is required of a trail to be considered an Easy Walk. In short, an Easy Walk would be on flat to mild terrain, have minimal low rocky conditions to navigate, and could be anywhere from a quarter mile to two and a half miles in length. Any slightly more challenging terrain might last only 20-30 feet. A step or two might be encountered at a bridge. Any wheelchair accessible path would constitute an Easy Walk, but some Easy Walks will extend beyond wheelchair accessibility.

Read on to learn some Easy Walk locations in the Connecticut River Valley, and find out about Easy Hikes too.