Quinnipiac Trail - part 2

This hike occurred on August 2, 2014

Trail Heads: 
370 Brooks Rd, Bethany, CT - This road is a narrow, wooded residential road. There's space for maybe 2 cars on the side of the road near the trail head.

250 Mt Carmel Ave, Hamden, CT - We parked on the side of the road by Sleeping Giant State Park. Street parking is allowed during the weekend; we did this so we could avoid the park's fee. 

Length/Distance: According the Connecticut Walk book, the route between the trail heads on Brooks Rd and the entrance of the Quinnipiac Trail into Sleeping Giant State Park was 4.6 miles. According to my GPS tracking program, our route was 4.89 miles.

Summary: We started from Brooks Rd. The day was overcast; it had rained earlier in the day so underbrush was damp. Less than a mile into the hike, my companion was stung six times by an unidentified insect; most likely, it was a wasp. After treating the stings, we continued on with our hike. Towards the top of a hill, we found Lowbush Blueberries (Vaccinium angustifolium) 

There were a few ripe blueberries to be had. We also found bushes of American Red Raspberries (Rubus idaeus) along the trail. At 1.1 miles, we came to a T with the Quinnipiac and the northmost portion of Regicides Trails.

After a bit more hiking, the trail has a road walk along Paradise Ave; in the future, this is where we'd access the northmost point of the Regicides, given the trail intersection was ~0.6 miles from Paradise Ave. There's also a parking area at the dead-end. 

The trail entered the woods again at the end of the cul-de-sac, fairly quickly leading to a road walk along Old Coach Hwy, Nolan Rd, Shepard Ave, and Rocky Top Rd. We then entered the woods again to the left side of Rocky Top Rd. This took us up and over York Hill. This portion of the trail was relatively overgrown and very noticeably so because of the prickers. There was some nice Staghorn Sumac (Rhys typhina). 

Along this portion of trail, we also saw an old stone chimney and oven. 

The trail emerged onto Kimberly Ave, right down the road from the Quinnipiac York Hill campus with the TD Bank Sports Center. They had some nice Lilacs planted in the area. 

From there, we road walked down West Woods Rd, over Whitney Ave, and then into the woods by Sleeping Giant. The trail lead around Mill River back to Mt Carmel Ave. 

There was a deer in the middle of the path by the river. 

Since we had previously hiked the entirety of the Sleeping Giant Blue Trail/Quinnipiac in years past, that finished our hike. We have two more hikes left to finish the entire Quinnipiac.