这条2,700英尺长的木板人行道被业主描述为惊奇之旅，它让业主到达了以前不可达和不可知的地方。业主在他家旁边的50英亩面积的湿地边缘设置了这样的木板路，完全由工人人工搭建。这已经成为了一个成功的栖息地介入案例。在这里的每个季节，都让人感到难以忘怀。
业主聘请景观设计师协助他们更好的管理这片再生森林财产。业主知道自己能够享受到这片湿地的边缘，但他们终究无法深入中部。于是，景观设计师在林地管理、边缘修复和草地扩建的基础之上，与生物学家，承包商，物业经理等等各专业的人员进行了长达9个月的协助，实现了这条低技的，人工的，轻细介入自然生境的人行浮桥。
Originally commissioned to aid the owners in stewardship efforts, primarily addressing the regrowth forest covering 70% their site, we came upon an unexpected possibility: to unite the entire property by constructing a circuit trail extending into the neighboring wetland—a place previously unreachable and unknowable.
Conservation biologists, permit specialists, contractors, the property manager, and municipal commissioners all collaborated on a design approvals process that took nine months. Path alignments originally designed in plan using aerial photograpy, were tuned on site to navigate among trees and snags, woody thickets, beaver impoundments, significant perennial stream courses, and wildlife corridors. Carpenters assembled the boardwalk in the water, without machines. They hauled materials in by hand and on floats. They drove helical support piles into the subsoil with crowbars and contained the debris with silt curtains and shovels. The scheme employed locally-milled hemlock planking (5,000 pieces) for the decking surface, chosen for its rustic, raised grain and ease of cutting in the field. The project demonstrates a participatory process that resulted in active stewardship of a wetland resource among professionals, conservation officials, owners, and contractors.
Experience on the Half-Mile Line is dynamic and varied. The walk departs from the upland path at three connecting points and becomes a series of contrasts among intimate, closed-in woody thickets, emergent marsh grasslands, and larger areas of open running water. Arriving at the project’s two observatory platforms set in open waters, one perceives the larger geographic context of surrounding forest and the Berkshires. Its design structures the observation and contemplation of nature that is equally powerful in its intimacy as in its expansiveness and drama.
