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Thanks for this post.

Everyday something for the mind on FR. Now I have to go up to the attic and root out "Walden Pond". It is a paper back. Though very happy with the comfort of Edison's inventions of light and warmth (and my Mini-Van). I did like Thoreau.

His little accounts still stick in my mind. How the small creatures survive at Walden. Something else though. The English veteran of Waterloo, A Colonel Quoyle (I think). Found dead in his cottage and a pack of playing cards littered on the floor. The chickens pecking around and "awaiting a fox". Time had caught up with him, surviving wars.

One more. The great steam engine at a halt, like Boanerges, stilled by human hand. Patiently waiting for a command. Now I have to get his last work on his travels which may have been partly in Canada.

America lucky to have a Thoreau.

I live not too far from Concord, MA and get a kick out of all the trendy yuppies that flock to Walden Pond to "experience" the outdoors as Thoreau once did. Every weekend when the weather is nice, the Walden Pond parking lots overflow with Volvos and Volkswagons and the yuppies come climbing out of them in their Abercrombie & Fitch clothing, pulling their spanking new stylish-looking backpacks and hiking shoes out of the trunks that they just purchased at North Face or L.L. Beans.

After making much fuss over adjusting and re-adjusting their packs, they grab their water bottles and embark on their mile and a half "hike", along with thousands of others, on the well-worn stone-dust trails surrounding the "replica" of Thoreau's one-room cabin. Then it's back to the cars to dump the still brand-new backpacks (destined for eBay) and head to the various gift shops and bookstores where they spend hundreds of dollars on knick-knacks to show their friends back home that yes, they made the obligatory pilgrimage to Walden Pond. Then they slap the $6.95 Walden Pond decal on the back of their vehicles, in between OBX (Outer Banks) and MV (Martha's Vineyard), and head back to their city condos and brownstones where they cap off the day with a meal in the North End or maybe over in Cambridge.

Personally, I think Thoreau would be horrified to see the way his pond has been turned into a yuppified ticky-tacky tourist trap.

Now if you want to have a real "Thoreau" experience in the Concord/Carlisle area, there are dozens of great trails in this area that Thoreau walked that are all but forgotten about. One of my favorites is the 10-rod trail that runs from just off Route 4 in Carlisle to the Harvard-owned Estabrook Woods in Concord. I take my dog walking there all the time and I hardly see anybody out there because it's not "touristy" and there is real hiking involved.