Next to the dam and beaver pond in the Van Loan Preserve, walkers can now pause on a wooden bridge and enjoy Riddle Brook.

On Saturday, May 12, the Bedford Land Trust opened a new walking trail in the 68-acre Van Loan Preserve. Gene Van Loan cut the ribbon for about a mile of trail.

“We’re very happy to have been part of Bedford and we’re happy to give something back to it,” Van Loan said of the preserve.

He said the town has changed over the years and conservation is important for Bedford.

“It was not always the suburban community that it is now,” he said.

The family donated the land to the Bedford Land Trust in December 2000.

Wally and Alison MacDermott also donated a section of land to make the trail accessible from the Benedictine Park on Wallace Road.

For their Eagle Scout projects, Bedford’s Carl Benes and Artie Murphy, both of Troop 414, helped tame the trail for walkers.

Benes helped with trail marking and construction of the bridges over a bog. Murphy built a kiosk and helped blaze an entrance to the trails from North Amherst Road.

“I wanted to help the land trust, and because they just got this land and couldn’t get into it,” Murphy said.

Much of the labor was done over about five weeks by six Appalachian Mountain Club trailblazers supervised by Mariah Keagy.

They used trees that they felled along the trail to build a bridge over the brook, she said.

“They are some young, strong, hardworking individuals,” Keagy said.