Quabbin Reservoir Road

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Belchertown

   Belchertown is a small town of green commons and white clapboard houses, and its unusual claim is that it sits beside a lake that was made by erasing four towns. The Quabbin Reservoir, to the north and east, was created in the 1930s to supply drinking water to Boston, a hundred kilometres away. To build it, the state cleared the Swift River valley of its people. The towns of Dana, Enfield, Greenwich and Prescott were disincorporated, roughly twenty-five hundred people were relocated, houses were moved or demolished, and cemeteries were dug up and reburied elsewhere. The valley was filled over several years, and the reservoir became one of the biggest man-made water supplies in the United States.

   Read the complete Belchertown write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Belchertown is where the day begins. Next is Quabbin Park.

2. 2. Quabbin Park

   Quabbin Reservoir is a drowned valley, and the quiet around it comes partly from that. When Boston needed more drinking water in the early twentieth century, the state dammed the Swift River in the middle of Massachusetts, and between the 1930s and the mid-1940s the water slowly rose over four towns, Dana, Enfield, Greenwich and Prescott, whose people had been moved out. Roads, houses and farms lie beneath the surface, and at certain gates you can still walk old, abandoned roads that run down to the water and disappear.

   Read the complete Quabbin Park write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Quabbin Park comes up about 11 km into the recorded legs. Next is New Salem.

3. 3. New Salem

   New Salem is a hill town in the old sense: a scatter of farms and old houses strung along a ridge in the north-central part of Massachusetts, with no real centre and not much commerce. It sits just above the western shore of the Quabbin Reservoir, which is the thing that explains the landscape. In the 1930s the state flooded the Swift River valley to give Boston its water, and four towns, Dana, Enfield, Greenwich and Prescott, were disincorporated and cleared out. The reservoir that resulted is huge, roughly eighteen miles long, and the forest that surrounds it has been left to grow back with very little interference.

   Read the complete New Salem write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 49 km into the recorded legs you reach New Salem. Next is Orange.

4. 4. Orange

   Orange sits in the north of central Massachusetts, in the quiet country of the North Quabbin, where the Millers River runs through a valley of mill buildings, farms and low forested hills. It is a modest town of about four thousand people, with a small main street, a skydiving school at its airport and a long industrial history, and Athol, a slightly larger neighbour of about eight thousand, lies a short ride to the west. For a rider it is a handy place to start a ride, with fuel, coffee and supplies close at hand.

   Read the complete Orange write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Orange closes the day.