From ecoRI News (ecori.org)

Thirty years ago Marjorie Turner Hollman found her right side paralyzed after brain surgery. She was unable to drive in the seven years of recovery that followed and turned to writing and taking walks down her dead-end road for solace.

When she met her second husband, an avid outdoorsman, she slowly began to move beyond handicap-accessible walks to what she now calls “easy walks.”

“If I had not found myself on a hospital bed paralyzed after brain surgery, I wouldn’t be doing easy walks,” said Turner Hollman, who lives in Bellingham, Mass., which is just over the Rhode Island border near Cumberland. “I have healed to the extent that I am able to walk with support, meaning hiking poles, and I’m very selective of where I choose to walk. I’m not your Appalachian Mountain Club material.”

Over the years, Turner Hollman sought out more of these easy walks, which she defines as “walks that don’t have too many roots, don’t have too many rocks, are relatively level … with something of interest along the way.”

In essence, walks that children, people with mobility issues, and those new to the outdoors can enjoy. Anyone, really.

And as Turner Hollman started her easy walks, she began to chronicle them — and the natural world around her — first for her local newspaper and later on her blog. Then, the questions came pouring in.

“I started having people find my Web site and they kept asking the question, Where’s Joe’s Rock?’” Turner Hollman said. “Well, it’s in Wrentham [Mass.] on Route 121 right near the Cumberland line, and after about the 500th time somebody came to that article, I said, ‘Well I think there’s a need here.’”

Turner Hollman wrote her first book, Easy Walks in Massachusetts, in 2014 to provide a one-stop-shop resource for anyone else in the state looking for easy walks. But the process was far from easy, since a lot of the walks she enjoyed weren’t in any guidebooks.

“At the time, they didn’t have any guides for outdoor things here. We’re not the Cape, we’re not in the White Mountains, we don’t have that cache,” she said. “Today, a lot of town offices have put up maps of their conservation areas, but when I started writing these in 2013, there were next to none. I visited town halls and said, ‘Help me!’ or called and said, ‘Do you have properties that kind of fit this?’ I did a lot of legwork.”

Since then, she’s written another three “easy walks” books, one of which was done in conjunction with the Ten Mile River Watershed Council, an organization with offices in Rumford, R.I., and Attleboro, Mass. This two-state watershed contains one of her favorite easy walks, Hunts Mills, which has a man-made dam and waterfall and trails that loop through the woods.

“It’s stunning and incredibly accessible,” Turner Hollman said. “You can even just sit in your car and watch the falls … it’s this hidden away little spot. It’s just a gem.”

In her most recent book, Finding Easy Walks Wherever You Are, Turner Hollman takes the principles of seeking out and enjoying easy walks to a broader level, providing tips and perspectives that anyone can use to seek out a special place to walk anywhere.

“There are plenty of places, but people don’t know how to find them because a lot of the time they’re off the beaten track,” she said. “I encourage people to consider places like, for example, your local cemetery to visit respectfully, understanding its first purpose is not a walking place … but they’re wonderful places to walk and often have paved roadways through them.

“So that’s a lot of what I talk about in finding easy walks wherever you are. It’s providing ideas that people maybe don’t think about.”

The book is also a culmination of Turner Hollman’s personal experience and belief that anyone, regardless of ability, can go on a walk.

“What I’ve learned in sharing Easy Walks is that many people can enjoy these outings, regardless of ability,” she wrote in a blog post from 2015. “Rather than my disability creating a barrier, I’ve found that working with, in spite of, and because of my disability has enriched my life, and the lives of many others. … These days I’m even more determined to search out and point others to places they can enjoy together.”

Grace Kelly is a journalist with ecoRI News.

Via ecoRI News (ecori.org)

WRENTHAM, Mass.

The local wildlife hosted an opera March 14 as we scaled “Joe’s Rock here.”

{For information on the Joe’s Rock Trail in Wrentham, please hit this link. }

As my boyfriend and his friend climbed the rock face — our local climbing gym was closed because of the coronavirus — I traipsed through the underbrush to get a closer listen to the wildlife singing their songs, and to take my mind off the pandemic that is gripping world.

We’re not the only ones turning to nature and the outdoors for a respite from the news.

“I walk a lot and I’ve noticed the places I walk have a lot more people and the parking lots are full,” said Rupert Friday, executive director of the Rhode Island Land Trust Council. “And I was talking to our board president, Barbara Rich, and she said all the places she normally walks, she drives by the parking lots and they are totally full, and I heard the same thing from a former board member who lives in Little Compton who said the places she normally walks are so busy that she is going to new places that are less well known.”

It’s not really a surprise. Social distancing and working from home, along with shuttered gathering spaces such as libraries, cafés, movie theaters, and restaurants, create loneliness and cabin fever. When there’s a virtual lockdown, the great outdoors beckons.

That’s a good thing, too. According to a 2011 study by Japanese researchers, participants who spent more time in natural settings exhibited lower levels of stress hormones than those in the urban control group.

For Margie Butler, a Providence resident, going outside has been a huge source of relief and calm during these troubled times

“I’ve been walking morning and evening now for well over a week during our COVID-19 times,” the resident of the Fox Point neighborhood said. “I admit to being a walker even in normal times, but something feels different now. When all else in our lives is becoming scarce and cumbersome — provisions, going into stores, travel, seeing family in person, and work — stepping outside for a walk is still available for us. It’s both a privilege and a responsibility.”

Butler noted that social distancing has still applied to her experience outside, as if walking everyone is zorbing along the beaten path rather than walking it.

“As I walk, I am keeping distance, unfortunately not going into any stores, and being very highly aware,” she said. “My COVID-19 day walks are this odd mix of joyful and somber. I greet each person I see with a wave or a hello. I have only run into one pal during a walk and we hung out on a fence six feet from each other and talked for a long time.”

The Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council has advised users of parks and paths to maintain distance and not to congregate.

“While nature, fresh air, and sunshine can be a tremendous help during trying times, we are all currently strongly encouraged to practice social distancing to slow the spread of COVID-19. This guidance applies when we enjoy the Greenway and other public spaces. If you arrive somewhere like the Greenway, and there are large crowds, turn around and come back another time,” the Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council suggested in a recent email.

But, as Friday noted, for many people the solitude of taking a walk or going for a hike is the best part.

“We did some focus groups around our new RI Walks website, and I expected people to want to have organized walks and join a group, but we had more people say that they prefer to go out for solitude, to enjoy the peace and quiet,” Friday said.

He also noted that this recent explosion in outdoor activity could lead to a greater appreciation for enjoying the trails, hikes, and outdoors beyond this crisis.

“I think when people get out there and see how much better they feel or see how nice it is and how it helps them relax, it will catch on, and they will remember that it’s something that makes them feel better,” he said.

Grace Kelly is a reporter for ecoRI News.