Trustees hike: Lowell Holly

By | August 29, 2026
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I recently visited Trustees of Reservations property Lowell Holly in Mashpee and Sandwich, MA, on Cape Cod. It’s a pleasant hike with lots to enjoy.

Selfie of a middle-aged redhead (me!) with a buzz-cut, scruffy beard, and a visibly lined and reddened forehead from the motorcycle helmet I just removed after more than two hours of riding. You can see me from the shoulders up, wearing a black leather riding jacket and a balaclava lowered to around my neck. I’m standing outdoors, with a road to my right, trees on the other side of the road, a tree directly behind me, and a signpost over my right shoulder with a turquoise sign hanging from it that says “Public Welcome / Lowell Holly” and has the Trustees of Reservations logo on it.

Lowell Holly abuts Wakeby Pond and Mashpee Pond. There are beaches on both ponds along the trails that you can take advantage of, weather-permitting. Also, the ponds are apparently good for fishing.

The connected trails provided by the Trustees are a bit over 3 miles of walking. It’s worth doing all of them, especially the trail to Conaumet Point, which sticks far out into Wakeby Pond, giving you a 300° view of the pond when you’re standing all the way out on the point.

Welcome sign posted at the entrance to Lowell Holly. Trail map available at https://thetrustees.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/lowell-holly-trail-map.pdf. “What makes Lowell Holly a special place? After visiting the sandy shoreline along Lowell Holly’s two freshwater ponds, you’ll appreciate why the area was once called Conaumet, from the Wampanoag word ‘Kuwunut,’ meaning ‘beach.’ This 135-acre reservation is named for its donor, Abbott Lawrence Lowell, and its stands of some 250 native American holly trees (Ilex opaca), which grow naturally only along the New England coast. While the reservation is a rare example of a Cape Cod old-growth forest, it also reflects the horticultural tastes of Lowell, former president of Harvard University, who added scattered plantings of rosebay and catawba rhododendrons to the grounds. Later, Wilfred Wheeler, Sr., a former Massachusetts Secretary of Agriculture and an enthusiastic member of the American Holly Society, enhance the landscape by planting 50 varieties of American holly.” The sign also has clip-art of a smartphone with these words superimposed on it: “Download our app to explore Lowell Holly! It’s called Go Trustees — Free [sic] the App or Play stores.” This is a lie; there’s no such app in the Play Store.

One thing the woodlands on this property, or more specifically the numerous downed trees within them, make clear is that Cape Cod gets harsher weather than the rest of Massachusetts. And it’s not just because of sandy soil; several of the downed trees I observed were dramatically snapped mid-trunk.

The top of a recently downed pine tree lying on the ground abutting a leaf-covered trail.
A tree with a trunk about a foot and a half in diameter at the base, snapped in half about 25 feet above the ground, with the top half of the tree, mostly denued of leaves and small branches, extending horizontally into a stand of trees that are keeping it from falling to the ground.

There seem to be a large variety of mosses growing in these woodlands. I snapped photos of a few that I found interesting. I won’t claim to be able to name these since I’m not a moss enthusiast.

Pale green, fuzzy / “stringy” moss growing around a branch that sticks out of a tree trunk about a foot and a half above the ground and then curves down to the ground as it crosses over the trunk.
Small spot of bright-green moss, a little shaggy, with a stem with a single small leaf growing out of the middle of it.
Green moss close-up.
A larger area of ground than the previous photos showing a large patch of green moss with cracks running through it that look kind of like the cracks that form in a dried-up lake bed.

There’s also a lot of flora to enjoy…

Starflower blossom with a whorl of long narrow leaves underneath it and the leaves of several other starflowers also visible.
A patch of Canada Mayflowers.
A patch of fern (Hay-scented Fern?).

Here’s a minute of Wakeby Pond. Enjoy the many bird sounds, gentle ripples in the clear water, crowds of large water bugs gliding over the water, and fish literally jumping out of the water to catch the bugs.

Here’s another view of Wakeby Pond.

A large, clear-watered pond with a sandy bottom with scattered black rocks. In the foreground is a strip of sandy beach with lots of footsteps in the sand. Trees line the pond in the distance on all sides and reflect prettily in the pond. In the center of the photo is a small tree-covered island which almost but not quite blends into the far shore. The sky is cloud-covered with a light patches in the cloud where the sun struggles to shine through.

I enjoyed the look of this section of the trail.

A woodlands trail of twigs and dirt. The trail is covered by a web of tree roots, and moss grows on and between many of the roots.

Here’s a taste of what the view is like if you take the time to hike all the way to Conaumet point.

I encountered this mysterious sigil on a tree while hiking back from the point. Your guess is as good as mine.

A tree trunk with a diameter of about two feet, with mysterious interlocking lines at various angles painted on it with yellow paint.

If you ignore the motorboat sound in the distance, this video of the waves on Mashpee Pond is tranquil. Ironically, of course, the tranquil waves are produced by the aforementioned motorboats.

Finally, I can’t end this thread without sharing this groundbreaking photo I captured of a wild beach-ball in its native habitat.

Two narrow trees (8” diameter trunks) acting as a gateway of sorts. Centered between them about 15 feet beyond them is a large, mostly inflated beach-ball with red, yellow, and blue panels separated by clear panels.
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