Mattabesett Trail - Part 8

This hike occurred July 22, 2012

Trail Heads: 
Miller's Pond State Park, Durham, CT - Parking: There is a lot of parking available at Miller's Pond; they have a lot that holds a few dozen cars so unless you're hiking on a hot Saturday afternoon, you should be able to find a parking spot quite easily. 

Corner of Pisgah Rd and Sand Hill Rd, Durham, CT - Parking: This technically isn't a trail head but I was perfectly happy parking on the side of the road. There is a sizable shoulder (there's enough room to have the car completely off the road) and no signs saying you can't park there. We didn't have any problems and saw other cars parked there too.    

Length/Distance: This hike was rather long. We started at Miller's Pond and hiked to the corner of Pisgah and Sand Hill Roads. According to my GPS tracking program, our route was 7.3 miles [I tried to edit the map and it changed my mileage; the map's mileage is incorrect. It really was 7.3 miles! Sorry!]. According to the CT Walk book, it should have been 5.9 miles. The difference between the two was substantial at 1.4 miles. This was rather irritating.

Summary: We began our hike at Miller's Pond. It was a beautiful summer day and many people were at the pond swimming, splashing, and picnicking. We went down to the water to see the areas people were using to swim. The water looked cool and refreshing. 

I grew up within 30 minutes of here and had only heard about the park online from people's reviews saying it was an excellent place to bring your dog and swim. As you can see from the sign at the top of the blog, it is explicitly listed as a "swim at your own risk" kind of place. They don't do water testing, have life guards or designated swimming areas, or charge money to enter the park. This is an awesome hidden gem. 

The trail from the parking lot to the blue trail is the white trail. It takes you part way around the lake before joining up with the blue trail which then leads around the rest of the lake. The lake was beautiful. We're planning on returning to the lake soon to do some swimming of our own.

Because of the news articles, I was on the lookout for the cliffs I'd heard about. There is a smallish section of cliffs in the middle of the northwest side of the lake. From what I could tell, it is extremely difficult to get to the cliffs; if you can walk there, it's a bare minimum of 1/2 mile from the parking lot. They seemed to be most accessible from the lake. It obviously takes quite a bit of effort to find them and jump off of them. Seems like a waste of energy to me; the rest of the lake looks so relaxing. After going around the lake, the trail heads up Bear Rock. The trail upward was rather steep.  

But the views were very nice!

After these views, we then headed back down. The trail down was... steep. It involved a lot of rock climbing and tree hugging to make sure we didn't fall to our deaths.  

My dog managed to survive it just fine but an older dog or less agile person would want to take the side trail that avoids this section (Bear Rock Bypass). The CT Walk book recommends utilizing this trail bypass during inclement weather and during the winter when the main trail may have ice on the rocks.  

After this section, the trail is mostly just little ups and downs and a whole ton of walking. There were some very cool trees that grew around a rock. Made us wonder if the rock had been moving over the past hundred years. 

There was a large rock formation made up of Milky Quartz. 

And this trail apparently goes past Coginchaug Cave. It wasn't much of a cave, honestly. It was a rock overhang with an indent. Right towards the end of the trail, there were the remains of what we thought was probably a raccoon. It was rather interesting. 

 After this, the trail came out onto Old Blue Hills Road. The trail was marked fairly well on the telephone poles. We walked almost a mile on the road, crossed Rt. 79 (where this sign was located), and arrived at our car! 

I'm also thrilled to report that my hiking sneakers arrived. I like them a lot!

Mattabesett Trail - Part 7

This hike occurred on July 19, 2012

Trail Heads: 
Brainard Hill Rd., Higganum, CT - Parking: At this trail head, there is off-road parking available for 2 cars maximum. The road is residential and very quiet so you could probably get away with parking on the side of the road, although the road is pretty narrow. 

Miller's Pond State Park, Durham, CT - Parking: So the blue trail doesn't enter Miller's Pond State Park near their parking lot. No, it's about 1/3 of a mile down the road. The road is also littered with these signs: 

I'm pretty sure they're around because Miller's Pond is a popular place to go swimming, even though you're technically not allowed, so their parking lot fills up quickly. If you're ever interested in Miller's Pond, know that it is a walk-in park only. Though we haven't seen them yet, apparently there are cliffs surrounding the pond that young people like to use to go cliff jumping. This has resulted in numerous injuries and a handful of deaths in the past 10 years. Someone has already died there this year.      

Length/Distance: We started out at Miller's Pond and hiked to Brainard Hill Rd. Because we had to walk down the road from Miller's Pond, we added about 3/10ths of a mile to the hike. According to the CT Walk book, the hike was 3.2 miles. According to my GPS tracking program, our route was 3.48 miles. All things considered, I believe the CT Walk book was actually correct for once!

Summary: The first part of the hike is all on the road. We hiked from Miller's Pond and down Foot Hills Rd; we entered the woods approximately 9/10ths of a mile into the hike. This hike was a bit more difficult than our previous ones because we were trying to hurry since we had very limited sunlight left when we began. Once in the woods, we encountered a cool-looking rock.

We also saw the cutest tiny frog ever!

The rest of the hike was rather rushed and the light was fading so we couldn't see very much. There was one place where the trail came out to an opening in the trees on a rock ridge. It was beautiful. 

A bit after this, the trail lead out under the high power lines and we could see some open sky. 

The sun going down reflected on the clouds. 

After this, we spent maybe 20 minutes tripping through the woods. I managed to sprain both ankles about 5 minutes apart. I can't wait for my new hiking shoes to show up. I'm pretty sure they'll be more stable than my 3-year-old sneakers. Yay for ankle instability! If you have an interest in seeing what the ankle repair surgery looks like, there are pictures here. I think I may need to suck it up and wear braces on both ankles every time I go hiking.  

Mattabesett Trail - Part 6

This hike occurred on July 16, 2012

Trail Heads: 
Brainard Hill Rd., Higganum, CT - Parking: At this trail head, there is off-road parking available for, at max, 2 cars. The road is residential and very quiet so you could probably get away with parking on the side of the road, although the road is pretty narrow. 

Seven Falls State Park, Haddam, CT - Parking: This roadside park has a parking lot right before Me and McGee's and also has parking available on Saybrook Rd's shoulder. 

Length/Distance: According to the CT Walk book, it should have been 1.6 miles. According to my GPS tracking program, the route was 2.17 miles.  

Summary: For this hike, we ended up walking between two Blue-blazed trail heads (Saybrook Rd & Brainard Hill Rd). The entire walk was on pavement/public roads. After looking at the elevation, we decided to hike from Brainard Hill to Saybrook Rd instead of the other way around. This was a good choice. The majority of the hike was down hill. Most of the roads were residential so they weren't too busy but there was still a fair amount of traffic. The road was well blazed with lots of telephone poles being marked like this one. 

Early on in the hike, we encountered a small farm stand. At the present, they only had plants. I wonder if they have veggies later in the season. 

There were some nice Queen Anne's Lace on the road as well. 

We saw some more Verbascum Thapsus growing between some rocks at a farm. 

We also saw some very pretty flowering Staghorn Sumac. 

This was a fairly quick and easy hike which was good since it was 90+ degrees and rather humid. The bugs did try to nibble on us but thankfully, we'd sprayed down with bug repellent. At the end of this hike, as we walked through Seven Falls park, one of my ankles gave out and I fell, twisting my ankle. Hopefully, it should be back to normal in a few days. Unfortunately, it's a rather common occurrence for me. This event also encouraged me to purchase a new pair of hiking shoes with more stability.    

Sleeping Giant - Violet trail

This hike occurred on July 14, 2012

Trail Heads: 
Chestnut Ln., Hamden, CT - Parking: There's a lot of roadside parking available here. The road is extremely quiet which was nice. 

Sleeping Giant State Park, Hamden, CT - Parking: On the weekends, Sleeping Giant charges money ($8-10) to enter the park with your vehicle. To avoid this, you can park on Mt Carmel Ave and walk in. Parking on the road isn't allowed during the week (only Sat/Sun). It is a good option during the summer but during the spring/fall when college is in session, there is often no roadside parking available. But of course, then the park doesn't charge. There is a small amount of overlap during spring/fall and it's a complete pain!  


Length/Distance: We completed the Violet trail, which according to the Sleeping Giant Park Association is 3.2 miles. According to my GPS tracking program, our route was 3.8 miles. 

Summary: This was a somewhat easy hike, especially compared with the Blue and White trails. There was a decent climb at the beginning where you had to scramble up some rocks but overall, it was fairly flat. At the beginning, there was some nice views of Mill River.   

There were also some cool ruins (more information can be read here), I believe these are either from an old grist mill or the Axle Shop. 

A bit further up the trail, there were ruins of a building that still had a roof. 

Overall, it was an easy hike with some good views. It was very nice to see parts of Sleeping Giant that we have hiked but from the ground. Considering it was 90+ degrees out, we were perfectly happy to not be climbing mountains.

Mattabesett Trail - Part 5

This hike occurred on July 12, 2012 

Trail Heads:
Aircraft Rd., Middletown, CT - Parking: To reach this trail head, you'll need to drive past a section of the Cockaponset State Forest. If you came off of Rt 9 and travel towards Pratt and Whitney, the trail head is on your right. The majority of parking here is on the side of the road. Aircraft Rd does have a sizable breakdown lane but cars travel on this road around 50-60 MPH so be very careful if you do park on the road. I found a 1 car space off the road a few hundred feet away from the trail head.

Length/Distance: According to my GPS tracking program, our route was about 3.6 miles. According to the CT Walk books, it was only supposed to be 3.1 miles.  

Summary: For this hike, we parked at Aircraft Rd and did a loop hike utilizing the Blue and Blue-Yellow trails. This section of the Blue-Yellow is designated as the Seven Falls Loop trail. Our route went from Aircraft Rd to Saybrook Rd using the Blue trail and then returned to Aircraft Rd using the Blue-Yellow trail. This trail starts with a steep uphill section; the first part of the trail also spends a lot of time weaving over and around sharp cliffs. 

Maybe 1/2 mile into the hike, there's a spot on the trail where you have to climb down 3-4 feet. My dog almost hurt himself jumping down; if I'd had my way, I would have picked him up and lowered him down. You need to be somewhat agile to navigate this section without getting hurt. 

Right after this, there was a very steep section of trail with flat, smooth rock covered with dirt and tiny slippery pebbles. I saw it, reminded myself to be careful, took a step, and fell. I slid down a few feet and my leg got pretty scratched and bruised. My palm wasn't too happy either. So, please take note: be careful. 

After this, we saw a huge boulder that climbers clearly use for bouldering. They'd left chalk marks on some of the biggest handholds. 

A bit up the trail from that there was a cave/rock overhang. There was a lot of spiderwebs hanging from the rock.

 Soon after that, the trail opened up under high voltage power lines. There, we found a lot of fascinating plants! First, there was a cute Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

Then we found wild blackberry plants with ripe fruit on them!

We had some of them and they were very good. 

We also found some wild blueberry plants with ripe fruit. 

We tried some of those as well. They were much sweeter than store-bought ones, though a bit smaller. 

There was some beautiful flowers (which we also saw on our first hike of the Mattabesett). I found they are called Wandlike Bush-clover (Lespedeza intermedia). Also, a fantastic resource for identifying local CT flowers can be seen here; they offer pictures and you can look at flowers by their color. Extremely useful!

There was an odd looking plant that stood about 5 feet tall. Turns out it's Verbascum Thapsus. Apparently, in the western US they call it Cowboy Toilet Paper. I'm not sure how keen I'd be to try that. 

We encountered a plant with berries that we initially couldn't identify nor could we figure it out after scouring the internet for over an hour. I finally found the CT Botanical Society's website and sent them an email with the below picture. They identified it as either Wild Sarsaparilla (Aralia nudicaulis) or Bristly Sarsaparilla (Aralia Hispida). Both of these plants have edible berries.

We also saw some Staghorn Sumac (Rhus typhina) which is not poisonous. The major differences between Staghorn Sumac (SS) and Poison Sumac (PS) (Rhus vernix) are: 1) PS's leaves have smooth edges and are more oval shaped while SS has jagged edges and long frond-like leaves; 2) PS's stalks are smooth while SS has brown/red hairy bristles; 3) PS only grows in swampy wetlands while SS grows in dry, poor quality soil; 4) PS grows only white berries when ripe while SS grows only red berries when ripe. 

Along this section of trail under the power lines, we had to climb down a huge set of boulders. There were a lot of holes and drop offs so we were very careful. My dog could handle it but just barely. 

After this, the trail led back into the woods again. We quickly came to a creek that parallels Saybrook Rd. The water was cool and there were many waterfalls. It was very pretty; it made me want to return on another day to splash in the water. There were sections that were probably 3 feet deep. 

Right around the creek we found 1/2 of an Eastern Bluebird egg shell. It was super cute. 

This is the first time we've made it out of Middletown on the Mattabesett trail!!!

From here, we easily found the Blue-Yellow trail and followed it back towards Aircraft Rd. We crossed under the power lines again and had a beautiful view. 

Right after entering the woods again, we found another 1/2 of an Eastern Bluebird shell.

The rest of the hike was fairly quick and easy. The Seven Falls Loop trail was easier than the main trail. One cool thing we did see was a whole section of the forest covered in Evergreen Woodferns. 

Overall, it was an eventful hike with lots of cool stuff to see! It did convince us that we needed to get in the habit of carrying a small first aid kit with us after my leg was scraped up from my fall and my friend was stung by a wasp on the way back to the car. Ah, fun times!