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The Haunting and Inspirational Slim Baker Area

She was dressed all in black, perhaps wearing a veil over her head. She was sitting on a split-rail bench in front of the large cross that dominates Inspiration Point, a spot on Little Round Top that overlooks Bristol village. From our vantage point, she appeared to be weeping, or perhaps praying.

We saw her from a distance as we crested the bluff, and stopped, not expecting to meet anyone there that day.

A youngster between eight and 10 years old, we had often made the two-mile hike from our home on the Borough Road (today known as Smith River Road, with Borough Road now starting at the Hill town line). There was a horse trail behind our house that led to what remained of the old stagecoach road that once ran from Boston to Montreal and went over Round Top to the village on the other side. From our house, it took about 20 minutes to reach the Slim Baker Area, and a few minutes more to climb the trail to Inspiration Point, and we enjoyed the peace and solitude those hikes provided.

Seeing someone there was a shock, because, except when there was a specific activity taking place, visitors to the lodge and its trails were few, and we had never encountered anyone on our previous visits. It was possible that she was a relative or friend of Dean Stephens, the young man who had died in an airplane crash at the age of 28, and to whom Inspiration Point had been dedicated. If so, the woman sitting there probably wanted to be alone, and we decided to turn back and not disturb her.

After going a few hundred feet back down the trail, we paused again, thinking of the hike we had made and deciding it would be foolish to turn around without enjoying the view we had come to see. With new resolve, we marched back to Inspiration Point, planning to ignore the woman and go past her to the edge of the bluff, leaving it to her to decide whether to remain there with someone else present.

The bench was empty.

We looked around and there was no sign of the woman in black. She could not have gone further because of the steep drop-off, and she certainly had not come back down the trail, or we would have met her.

She had vanished into thin air!

It did not take the usual 20 minutes for our panicked feet to beat it back down the trail to home.

Thinking about the “ghost” in later years, we wondered if the woman had left by going down a two-rut service path that connected the lodge to Inspiration Point, but we were unsure whether that path was there at the time of our sighting. In recent years, that trail has been developed into a larger, multi-use path, and today there would be no doubt about someone being able to leave that way.

Regardless, that one experience with a potential ghost has stayed with us, and we never dismiss anyone’s account of ghostly encounters. It also has become part of the fabric of memories associated with the Slim Baker Area.

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There are plenty of places on and near the property for ghosts to hang out. There is the Sleeper Cemetery, a Revolutionary War-era graveyard close to the lodge, where some of Bristol’s earliest residents are buried. We used to tiptoe around that one.

Alongside the stagecoach road (officially New Chester Mountain Road) are mounds of stones that, as a child, we were told marked the graves of Native Americans (“Indians” in those days).

Then there was the overarching presence of the late Everett “Slim” Baker, a New Hampshire conservation officer who wanted children to learn about conservation and appreciate the outdoors. If his ghost floated over the area, it was a benevolent spirit that never interfered when, as teenagers, we would inspect the interior of the locked lodge by climbing a ladder on the outside of the building and entering by way of the loft; or, as young adults, we’d clamor up the trails at midnight while sharing a cheap bottle of schnapps.

Slim Baker Foundation

Slim Baker’s interest in having an outdoor education center for the town became a reality with the creation of the Slim Baker Foundation for Outdoor Recreation. Originally established as the Slim Baker Fund, the organization now maintains 135 acres of woods and hiking trails, centered around the Slim Baker Lodge.

Today, the Nature Preschool gives younger children a chance to study and experience the outdoors in much the same way the Boy and Girl Scouts and campers with the Tapply-Thompson Community Center have done for decades. Adults help track the flights of migrant birds from Inspiration Point. Hiking trails offer those of all ages a glimpse of nature and the sense of tranquility that comes from being outdoors.

Usage of the area, once sparse, has expanded as the foundation has adapted to today’s youths and adults.

Last year, through the efforts of Clay Dingman, one of directors of the Slim Baker Foundation, the Quabbin to Cardigan (Q2C) Initiative awarded a grant to assist the foundation in re-routing some of the existing trails to make them more accessible, remediating boggy sections and improving a steep, eroding section of the Stephens Trail Loop.

The foundation recently received a second grant from Q2C to assist with the cost of hiring a trail consultant to lay out new hiking and snowshoeing trails along the undeveloped eastern portion of the property, starting in November. Those funds are being supplemented by proceeds from the region’s recent Run Your Buns Off charity race.

Q2C, according to its website, is a two-state partnership focusing on the conservation of the Monadnock Highlands of north-central Massachusetts and Western New Hampshire, northward to Mount Cardigan and the White Mountain National Forest. Bristol is included in that two-million-acre region which Q2C says is “one of the largest remaining areas of intact, interconnected, ecologically significant forest in central New England, and is a key headwater of the Merrimack and Connecticut rivers.”

Dingman said the ultimate goal is to double the mileage of the trails on the Slim Baker property, to about four miles, which includes the multi-use trail to Inspiration Point.

The Slim Baker Foundation also is looking to achieve a bigger profile in the life of the region, and it plans to hold a “Make and Take Natural Holiday Craft” event as part of Bristol’s kick-off to the  season on Nov. 25, the day after Thanksgiving. Prior to the annual tree-lighting ceremony in Central Square, the fair allows people to “enjoy the ambiance of the Slim Baker Lodge and make a craft of natural elements to take with them,” according to Dorcas Gordon, another of the directors.

Running from 2 to 4 p.m., the craft workshop is open to those of all ages, and light refreshments will be served. It is being co-sponsored by Heart-Centered Multi-Age Independent School that operates Nature’s Classroom.

Find out about all that the Slim Baker Area has to offer by visiting http://slimbaker.org.

31 October 2016