Bald Hill's assemblage of rich forests, diverse wetlands, and open water supports an extraordinary diversity of plant and animal life. Greenbelt protects 25 land parcels within a much larger protected area. Bald Hill East is adjacent to the Boxford State Forest and the John Phillips Wildlife Sanctuary, together consisting of 2,267 acres spread across Boxford, North Andover, and Middleton.

This land had spiritual significance to Indigenous people living in the area. They would have centered their calendrical observations and community rituals at Bald Hill, which retains evidence of a ceremonial stone landscape. The people also would have centered many of their subsistence activities at Crooked Pond with its beaver dams, bogs, Ph-neutral water, and limestone-nourished plants such as marsh dogwoods and marsh marigolds.

The people were Pawtucket, also called the Agawam. Approximately 200 Agawam were living at Bald Hill at the time of English settlement. They were not a tribe but an alliance of bands with villages in northern Essex and northern Middlesex counties, all under the aegis of the Pennacook Confederacy of the Merrimack Valley, based in New Hampshire.

Bald Hill holds rich forests, wetlands ponds, and a wide variety of ferns, including cinnamon fern, hay-scented fern, and bracken fern. Three kinds of lily pads flower on Towne Pond. Spring wildflowers include Columbine, hepatica, bloodroot, and pink lady's slipper.

Spring finds salamanders breeding in its two dozen vernal pools, and the air alive with spring peepers singing. Crooked Pond and the slopes of Bald Hill are among the country’s best locations to see breeding birds, including winter wrens, yellow-throated vireos, pileated woodpeckers, and northern goshawks, and their courtship rituals in April and May.

Summer brings flowering plants and breeding raptors; fall delivers a spectacular foliage display and winter wildlife tracking is an exciting adventure when fallen snow becomes the record book for the travels of white-tailed deer, fisher, mink, otter, and the occasional moose.

Crooked Pond Trail
1.9 Mile Trail Loop | Moderate
Begin at the South Parking Area on Middleton Road. Hike on a wide trail through a mature woodland, passing a beautiful freshwater wetland on your left. Continue up the trail until Crooked Pond becomes visible with its many standing dead trees. With the pond on your left, the trail skirts the steep wooded hillside due to beaver flooding. Toward the western end of the pond bear left, and follow the trail across a small beaver dam where the trail is often flooded. Stay left at the first intersection, and remain on the main trail before going left again at the second major intersection. This trail takes you downhill back to a trail along the pond and eventually reconnects with the trail to the parking area.