A Walk Across the Giant

Nayantaquit Trail in the Lyme section of the Nehantic State Forest – 4 mile loop trail with two side trails, total hike about 7 miles.          State Forest Map                                         State Forest Website The Nehantic State Forest is the first in New London County , with land purchases completed in 1925.  It’s broken into two sections, here in the Lyme block and then the East Lyme block a little farther to the northeast. The entrance to the state forest is off Route 156 in Lyme – on a small dirt road that’s easy to miss.    If you’re coming up from the south, as I was, and pass Elsie and here friends at Tiffany Farms, you’ve gone too far.    The entrance road,   Keeny Road , is a dirt/crushed rock road that winds along the southern end of the forest leading to two small lakes: Norwich Pond and Uncas Po...

Last September I hiked the Zoar Trail in the Paugussett State Forest expecting to have lunch next to the huge waterfall where Prydden Brook empties into Lake Zoar .  Imagine my disappointment to find a bone dry brook and a lot of dry rocks were there was supposed to be a gushing waterfall. Now with the melted snow and early spring rains, it was worth another trip into the forest to see what the brook and falls were like.  And voila, Prydden Falls: I started the same route as my last trip – parking at the Great Quarter Road trailhead lot and hiking in along the lake.  To be accurate, Lake Zoar isn’t a lake, but a wide section of the Housatonic River upstream of the Stevenson Dam.  The town of Zoar was flooded in 1919 when the river was dammed for power generation, so they got the ‘lake’ named after them.  The Zoar Trail is a loop route along the river, crossing the Prydden Brook just above the falls, and then coming back around through the Paugussett...