Medium (300-900 acres)

Small (100-300 acres)

Miniature (30-90 acres)

Blue Hills 
Negotiating the over 7000 acres of the Boston area's largest park requires an excellent map. The Blue Hills map, with its trail intersection numbers and color coded marked trails, is by far the most useful Boston area map for pure hiking (the intersection numbers are by section, and increase in each section from W to E). Pick up a map for $1 at either the Trailside Museum [Rte 138] or the Headquarters Bldg [Hillside St].
 
The blue [rectangle] blazed Skyline Trail goes over about a dozen rocky hills, offering numerous scenic views and a gross elevation gain of 2500 feet. It is a 10 mile destination trail, though it has a 3 mile loop in the steepest section. Aside from two destination trails (the other with orange rectangles), the marked trails display color coded circles - the circle to indicate a loop trail, the color indicating length/degree of difficulty. Yellow circle trails are 1 mile or less, green 2 to 4 miles but relatively flat, red 1 to 2 miles with fairly steep stretches.
 
The Skyline Trail from Rte. 138 (just N from Rte. 128) to the top of Great Blue Hill (635 ft) is a short, rugged climb with elevation gain of well over 400 feet. It is easily accessible by both car and MBTA.

Boston Nature Center 
67 acre Mass Audubon wildlife sanctuary, with two miles of trails. Near Franklin Park, Forest Hills Cemetery, and Arnold Arboretum.

Breakheart Reservation 
This 640-acre park is of breathtaking beauty, especially around the lower and upper ponds (pic). The views below match the fine hilltop views. A great place to start is the 2 mile paved loop road (off limits to cars, with rare ranger escorted exceptions), which is a favorite for joggers after work in the fall and spring. It is now plowed on one side in winter; the other side is for skiers. There are plenty of real trails for the serious hiker.

Brookline Reservoir/Olmsted Historic Site 
The reservoir is just off Rte 9, but is a pleasant 1 mile walking experience. The Frederick Law Olmsted site is a half block away. Call ahead for hours.

Charles River (linear park) 
The Charles River Bike Path is a 16.7 mile loop along the banks of the Charles, from the Museum of Science in downtown Boston to Watertown Square and back. The dozen bridges allow for a loop walk/bike of almost any length (see map with distances over and between bridges). As with most linear parks, some parts are much nicer than others. The path is being extended beyond Watertown; the additions so far range from somewhat pleasant to somewhat mindnumbing (perfectly flat with extremely long, very wide, prohibitively expensive boardwalks).

Chestnut Hill Reservoir 
Good place to walk or jog if you live nearby, but too much of it is treeless and beside a busy street to go to any trouble to get to. You can get away from the street by going over the reservoir fence, but don't do it! Newton has its share of busybodies who will have you arrested, as a reporter for one of the local newspapers discovered.

Emerald Necklace (linear park) 
Series of parks and greenways extending from the Boston Common to Jamaica Pond, Arnold Arboretum and Franklin Park. Conveniently for a one way walk, Boston Common and Arnold Arboretum are each a short block from the Orange line.

Forest Hills Cemetery 
Less formal than Mount Auburn Cemetery, but very enjoyable. Eugene O'Neill, e. e. cummings, and 19th century libertarian Lysander Spooner are among those buried here. Don't miss the sculpture path (pics of 28 sculptures).

Franklin Park 
Designed by Olmsted to be the crown jewel of Boston's emerald necklace, in recent years even the golf course fell into disuse. After a serious cleanup, it actually looks and feels like a park again. Its location still keeps a lot of people away, though. If you don't feel comfortable going there alone, the Boston Globe calendar section will occasionally have a Franklin Park hike listed.

Fresh Pond 
A nice pond to walk or jog around away from the noises of Cambridge, but if you want solitude, go to nearby Mount Auburn Cemetery.

Hammond Pond Park/Webster Conservation 
Where else can you rock climb several hundred feet from Bloomingdales? See a deer park and a garden in the woods? Parts of the park are surprisingly secluded, but if you are worried about getting lost, bring along a street, not trail, map.

Hancock Woods 
Very scenic. Yellow dot trail (1998) goes around and through some exceptional Roxbury puddingstone formations. Surrounding wetlands and a hill provide buffers. Leatherbee Woods abuts to the north but there is no connecting trail. Combining the two and repairing the storm damage to Leatherbee Woods would create a truly wonderful 100 acre park.

Hemlock Gorge 
Delightful 23 acre park on the banks of the Charles with Hemlock tree stands and a steep gorge. The view from the top of Echo Bridge (it carries an out of use aqueduct across the Charles) is splendid, as is the echo beneath the main arch of the bridge. The hiking trails are perfect for a leisurely family outing. The one drawback is the muffled roar of cars on nearby Rte. 128.

Horn Pond/Horn Pond Mountain 
Horn Pond often draws a crowd, especially on a nice summer's evening. A former road runs right through the middle of the park, providing easy going for the very young and very old. On a hot day, the end of the shady peninsula that juts out into the horn-shaped pond is a great place to enjoy the breeze.
 
Horn Pond Mountain has a nice view, is of decent hiking size, and you can wander all over it without running into anyone.

Larz Anderson Park 
A large, wide open hill overlooking Boston, with a small but nice pond below. A great place to fly a kite on a windy day. Very little shade!

Leatherbee Woods 
Several-year-old severe snow storm damage mostly unrepaired as of April 2000. The boardwalks are in terrible shape. It's too bad, especially now that nearby Hancock Woods has been fixed up.

Lincoln Conservation/Walden Pond 
Judging by the turnout for AMC events there, this may be the most popular local area to go walking on a pleasant fall day. The terrain is just varied enough to not be boring, and Fairhaven Bay (Sudbury River), Walden Pond and Sandy Pond are quite nice. Bring a hat to protect your head if you hike here during black fly season!

Lynn Woods 
This 2000 acre park has come a long way from the neglect of the 1970s and 1980s. Most importantly for new visitors, the park map and the park have grid-coordinated trail intersection markings, making the park a pleasure to explore.
 
The 3 large ponds help shape the park and buffer it from the outside world. The Undercliff Path, with its unexpectedly lush vegetation, is worth a trip by itself. Bring a flashlight for the nearby "cave". Open part time, it was blasted out of solid rock over many years in the 1800's, in search of pirates' treasure. The view from the stone lookout tower, currently shut for repairs, is exceptional. The area north of Walden Pond (not the pond in Concord!) is less used and a bit wild.

Middlesex Fells 
There are excellent views on the eastern Fells white-blazed Rock Circuit Trail - from ledges and rock outcroppings, not hills. But the best scenery, at least after a heavy rain, is of the Shilly Shally Brook (pic) cascading 120 feet down off the eastern ledge. About a mile north, in the Virginia Woods, Spot Pond Brook much more gradually makes a similar drop. Mills thrived here until Spot Pond (pic) became the water supply for Medford-Melrose-Malden around 1870, and its water diverted.
 
Interstate 93 splits the Fells' 2075 acres in half. Pine Hill and its tower stand sentry over the southern entrance of I-93 into the Fells, and provide an easily accessible, excellent view of the Boston skyline and other points south. Park at the Bellevue Pond parking lot, nearby on South Border Rd.
 
The Middlesex Fells is by far the largest park with a nearby subway stop. Check the Middlesex Fells-Oak Grove T-Pine Banks map for directions from the subway station.

Millennium Park 
Large almost treeless 120 foot high hill. There are playing fields on top, paved paths at various levels, and a canoe landing, a small wooded area and connections to the Charles River greenway and the Brook Farm site at the bottom (maps). There is an excellent view of the western half of the Blue Hills, but the tops of the Prudential and Hancock are all that is visible of the Boston skyline.

Moose Hill Wildlife Sanctuary 
This Massachusetts Audubon preserve has an extensive system of marked trails (maps available at Visitor Center on Moose Hill St). The Warner Trail (RI to Canton) goes through Moose Hill sanctuary, providing an exceptional view to the S and SW along a ledge near the top of Bluff Head (491 ft).

Mount Auburn Cemetery 
America's first garden cemetery, it provides the answer to the question of whether people would pay a premium to be buried in pleasant surroundings. People have been dying to get in here ever since. Inexpensive map guides to both the famous people and the extensive tree collection are available at the entrance. If a longer walk is desired, Fresh Pond is only a longish block away.

Pine Banks Park 
Straddling the Malden/Melrose town line, the landscaped front section of this 100+ acre park includes an esker and a 60 ft high volcanic remnant overlooking a small pond (pics). In the back section are several hills with excellent views. The park is buffered by hills, and on the north and the south by cemeteries, adding greatly to its charm.

Prospect Hill 
A mile north of Brandeis, it is the highest hill near Boston not in the Blue Hills. A tree canopy keeps the top part of the hill free of underbrush. Half of the year, leaves block the fine scenic view. Motorcycles disturb the peace on occasion, as there is a road to the top.

Revere Beach 
3 miles of flat, sandy beach. America's first public beach. Still a popular warm weather spot, it now gets little use at other times.

Shaker Glen 
Most of this long, narrow valley is surprisingly secluded, though all of it is within a few hundred feet of civilization.

Stony Brook Reservation 
Stony Brook's elongated 475 acres stretch from more than a mile south of Arnold Arboretum to less than a mile north of Fowl Meadow. There is an asphalt path network, and about ten miles of hiking trails, mostly in the northern half.

Weymouth Great Esker 
Supposedly the highest in North America, this 2 mile long esker along the tidal Weymouth Back River rises 90 feet above sea level in several places. There are a number of paths, including a paved one most of the esker's length, though only one section is on the esker's top. Avoid the two hours before and after high tide in nice weather, as motor boats often destroy the Back River's tranquility.

Wompatuck State Park 
There are a number of hiking trails, some minor hills, and a nice pond area in this mostly flat 2800 acre former military reservation. The large network of unused paved roads is used by both hikers and bicyclists.

World's End 
This 250 acre Olmsted landscaped peninsula juts out more than a mile into the SE corner of Boston harbor, providing fine views of some of the harbor islands and of the 11 mile distant Boston skyline. Owned by Trustees of Reservations ($4 admission fee).