Roaring Brook Conservation Area and Trails

The Town of Leverett purchased the 40-acre Roaring Brook Conservation Area in 2000 with the help of fund-raising efforts by the Rattlesnake Gutter Trust, Kestrel Trust, the Leverett Conservation Commission, the Valley Land Fund, and the Berkshire Chapter of the Appalachian Mountain Club. The property has 2,000 feet of frontage along Roaring Brook, a bridge built by Americorps crew, wetlands and woodlands. The area of protected land has been extended to the south with the Donald H. Bates Sanctuary owned by Rattlesnake Gutter Trust.

Directions

• From the Leverett Town Hall, turn left/south and then bear left on Shutesbury Road.
• After about 1.5 miles, when Shutesbury Road turns sharply left/uphill, follow it uphill on Shutesbury Road for 0.5 miles.
• Pull off the road at the Roaring Brook Trailhead (blue trail markings will take you to the white dot trail and down to the Roaring Brook bridge to your south.)
• OR at the corner where Shutesbury Road turned sharply uphill, you can continue straight ahead following the signs to the Leverett Transfer Station.
• Park near the cemetery, walk back to January Road/Old Lancaster Pike.
• Continue walking on the old woods road (sharp left-hand turn under the power line) to the Bates Sanctuary and the trail that will get you to the Roaring Brook Conservation Area.

Trails

The trail from Shutesbury Road will take you over the Roaring Brook bridge, through wetlands and mountain laurel thickets, through trees telling their history by the barbed wire fences embedded in their trunks, and along Lancaster Pike, a 50-mile road built beginning in1733 to connect Sunderland, and therefore the Connecticut River, with the eastern part of the state. Lancaster Pike Tour prepared by Annette Gibavic for the Leverett Historical Society. Roaring Brook and Bates Sanctuary Trail Map

Historic Maps of the East Leverett (and Leverett) – of special interest to those familiar with the DVD interview with John and Georgana Foster, Reflections on Roaring Brook, September 20, 2014 and those interested in the history of the East Leverett mill village just downstream from Roaring Brook Conservation Area.