Walking the Merrimack River in Lowell, MA

Why I Love the Family Walks along the Merrimack River

Family walks in Lowell, MA

Lowell Riverwalk is a moderate to highly trafficked walking trail in the city of Lowell, MA. It is open year-round and offers excellent views of the Merrimack River and historic mill buildings. Several small bridges cross over several canals that empty into the Merrimack River. The trail passes behind LeLacheur Park and is part of the UMass Lowell Campus.

On line information:

We moved to Lowell in September 1986. I have enjoyed living here all these years.At this point when my passage to old age determines that I must limit my travel and travel blogging to somewhere close to home. I realized that we are sitting on the hub of haven for globe trotters.  Lowell was declared a National Park in the 80’s, and a wealth of information is available about the city, and its surroundings: how it became a National Park and received Federal government’s attention; and why some of its areas came under State’s protection and became State parks.

One of the most important resource we have utilized over the years is the walking path called  ‘Family walks’ in Lowell for years without really exploring the area that has given us health and happiness for almost last 40 years. 

I always looked after my health by watching what I eat, being physically active, and getting plenty of rest. My focus has always been Yoga and daily walks, as I mentioned earlier, on the path called “family walks” along Merrimack River’s north bank.

After I retired from transitional Spanish bilingual teaching position in Lowell, we started traveling as was planned. I loved the experiences, I took notes and planned on writing killer article about my travels. As usual I had writer’s block and found excuses to postpone the process. Anyway, at last in 2016 , I started a blog and called it Rasheeda’s Travel and Food Blog as I had also been an avid recipe writer, recipe collector and considered myself a chef quality home cook. I looked at having some experts make the site for me, but their off the chart price quotes were simply not affordable. I decided to do it with the help of YouTube channel and all the on line help I could find. My perseverance, determination to succeed, and hard work paid off and I had my site up and running. I can’t boast as being totally technologically savvy, but I found enough help in this world of computer internet technology to step- by- step design, set up, and run my website. I signed up with a hosting platform called Hostgator.com. the process was simple, and my Domain name became rasheedablogs.org.

Since then, I posted several travel experiences as well as many of my favorite recipes under the menu section called Food Blog. As it happens, I was way too full of myself about making my own website and managing it successfully. But my enthusiasm along with our travels took a huge dive because of the Pandemic, and my blog went sort of dormant. There was no fresh travel information to indulge and enjoy writing about. I was afraid that if I stop writing, it might sap my energy or even my sanity

When I first started, I used to do two rounds or more to make it three miles walk which I completed within an hour. At that time, I walked about 17 minutes a mile.  Now my reduced speed makes it 23 minutes or even more per mile depending on what kind of day I am having, I still do almost an hour’s walk by only completing just over 2 miles and I am very happy with it. I always feel lucky to be able to walk along this beautiful, shimmering, fast flowing river. Chatter of people, the dog walkers in front or behind, skaters, bicyclist calling from behind to warn you by saying, coming on the left etc., kids giggling, looking at me curiously, may be thinking that I am looking and judging them. Kids chasing their siblings on foot, on bicycles, and on skates or however else they chose is a life giving joy to me. My grandson, Mohsin, when he was little was my joy on walks. when I had him with me, he had a great time feeding the ducks, going fast on his bicycle, insisted on crossing the road at the traffic lights on the way. He would stand there and would want to do it several time by waiting for red light to cross and do it over and over again, and yet another time. He kept saying, can we do It again? Believe me I had the patience for everything he asked for any number of times. 

This wide, shimmering, pristine waters with people fishing, motor boats, and jet skis, creating Caribbean feeling, free weekly river cruise boats waiting for those who were ready to board is an amazing  resource even for  people like me who use it selectively but scarcely.Yet there are those who use its full potential for everything it has to offer. To the young students who come to Umass to study from all over the country, and all over the world, the Merrimack River offers amazing opportunities for their enjoyment. 

To people like me it offers exclusive space, to relax and enjoy life in pursuit of health, sanity, and overall wellbeing. When I park my car, I walk towards the Roark Bridge, which is on the opposite side of the designated walking trail, and not included in the recommended range in terms of the distance with added benefit that it rounds off 1.5 miles of the walk to 2 miles. 

I made a lot of friends or, I should say acquaintances, through the years I have been walking.

When I started walking regularly after the last winter, I noticed something interesting. There is a great deal of Bank erosion along the western part of the walk. There had been a lot of rain, wind, and bad weather throughout the winter month, although significantly less snow compared to what we normally used to get. 

Erosion is a geological process in which part of the riverbanks are worn away and transported to other area. The images below show parts of the Merrimack River North bank torn away along with their vegetation and bare trees and floating indolently.

Turning around to go back toward Sampas Pavilion, you see people with their children feeding mallard ducks, pigeons, and variety of bird, while there is an occasional small groups fishing.  In the summertime all along the walk you see people walking, jogging, running, skating, bicycling, fishing, swimming, picnicking, and relaxing. 

The Family walk ends at Sampas Pavillion, an amphitheater, where you can turn around and walk back to complete the round trip to the Bellegarde Boathouse parking lot and head back home.