AMHERST — Already a popular spot for walkers, many with dogs in tow, the Amethyst Brook Conservation Area trailhead will undergo improvements to improve access to hundreds of acres of permanently protected land in Amherst, Pelham and Shutesbury.
With Kestrel Land Trust and The Trustees for Reservations last year placing a conservation restriction on the 1,094-acre contiguous forest now known as the Sarah Cowls Forest at Pelham Hills, the town’s conservation department will soon upgrade the Pelham Road site.
Assistant Town Manager David Ziomek said that some of the work, which will get underway this fall, will include installing new kiosks, revising trail maps, putting in fences and striping the parking lot.
The trail itself will also shift. “We’re slightly rerouting the trail that caused erosion on the brook,” Ziomek said.
This will include replacing two undersized culverts and trying to make the first part of the trail fully compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The trail from Amethyst Brook eventually ties into the Robert Frost Trail.
The newly protected land is being stewarded as “forever wild,” with Kestrel and The Trustees taking a passive management approach to the forest to encourage old-growth conditions to develop.
The site takes its name from Sarah Cowls, who was born in 1887 and ran a dairy operation where the Mill District of North Amherst is now located.
