Sleeping Giant - 1/2 Orange & 1/2 Yellow loop hike

This hike occurred on April 26, 2013 

Trail Head:
Sleeping Giant State Park, Hamden, CT - Parking: For this hike, it was early enough in the season that the state park was not yet charging for parking on the weekends. We parked in the picnic loop; there was plenty of parking despite it being a lovely day. 

Length/Distance:
We completed a loop hike using 1/2 of the Orange trail and 1/2 of the Yellow trail which according to the Sleeping Giant Park Association is 2.6 miles. According to my GPS tracking program, our route was 2.65 miles.     

Summary: 
We began on the Orange trail. 

The initial climb was not steep in comparison to some Sleeping Giant trails but did have a long uphill section at the beginning. 

Part way up the initial climb, we crossed over the Tower trail. 

There was a good partial view of Quinnipiac near the top of the initial climb. 

After hiking half of the Orange trail, we crossed over to the Yellow trail. 

We came across a number of bridges and stairs that had been built by the park rangers.

Many of them had chicken wire mesh placed on them for traction. 

The path ended with a bit of a downhill section which was quite welcome.

This was our first recorded hike of the 2013 season and as such was a fairly light hike. As we hiked, we got to listen to the overly enthusiastic sounds of a Quinnipiac Bobcats baseball game across the way. Apparently, the Bobcats lost.   

We have been doing some lighter hiking this spring to get outside and back up to speed for this year's hiking adventures. We should be increasing our number of recorded hikes soon!