A Walk Across the Giant

         Southford Falls State Park , Oxford , CT           State Park site                         Trail Map There are over a hundred state parks in little Connecticut , and beyond Sleeping Giant, I’ve only been to a few – those with miles of trails on their own or where one of the blue-blazed trails passes through.  At 120 acres, Southford Falls is one of the smaller parks. But I am a sucker for waterfalls, and when a photo group planned a shoot at Southford Falls , I had to check it out.  The falls are a beautiful photo spot, but don’t stop there.  The state park is a great place to spend some time and wander around.  The falls run on Eight Mile Brook as it flows from Lake Quassapaug to the Housatonic River .  If you're mapping it out, be careful to avoid wrong turns from the naming convention used out here - this ...

Part 2 - the Mattabesett Hike date June 13, 2011   I left you right here in Part 1 , just off the Reservoir Loop Trail and on the Mattabesett Trail heading north toward River Road.  I'll still detail the hike as it's done in the Connecticut Forest and Park Association's Walk Book , but I have to get up to the north trailhead first! Following the blue blazes is supposed to be easy - just follow the trail and see a blue patch every once in a while to confirm you're in the right place.  And it was just like that for a few miles, until I got close to a trail section near power lines.  The trail was clear, though there are woods roads and bike/quad trails all through here.  The trail obviously bent to the left, and I hiked up and over a ledge crossing, down along a woods road until I realized it's been a long time since I saw a trail blaze!  Look forward - no blaze.  Look backward - no blaze.  Backtrack, follow another clearing, turn around aga...

Part 1 - Reservoir Loop Trail Hike date June 13, 2011   I've confirmed yet another immutable fact of life - this blog don't write itself.  While I have been hiking the last few weeks, I just haven't been able to sit down and write about it.  So let's get you caught up. The 50 mile Mattabesett Trail winds its way from Middletown to Berlin , kind of a U-shape as it runs south from the Connecticut River to Guilford , and then back up along the ridgelines through Middletown ending on the Berlin Turnpike.  The Connecticut Forest and Park Association's trail guide breaks the Mattabesett into seven sections, from three to thirteen miles in length.  But with side trails, loop trails and access points all along the way, you can create a hike of almost any length.  How much time do you have?  Do you want to hike along the mountain ridge, or the water, or take an easy walk through the forest?  Just pick a section.  I've been hopscotching a...

Every trail guide I’ve read calls out the length of the trail.  Did you ever wonder how those measurements are taken?  GPS – right?  But trail guides have been in publication far longer than hand held GPS units.  OK, so we just pace it off and do the math? For this Paugussett Trail trip, I was lucky to meet up with a group on a joint AMC / CT Forest and Park Association hike.  And along the way, the CFPA was rechecking the trail for the next edition of their guide.  So out comes the wheelie road measurer, and the GPS .  Somebody wheels the trail, and then at the end they’ll check the GPS and see how close the two measurements are.  For today, the Paugussett Trail is 9.1 miles.  Tomorrow – who knows? We dropped cars at Indian Well State Park  in Shelton and then drove to the other end of the trail on East Village Road in Monroe .  The CFPA guide (from the Walk Book West ) has the trail starting across from this pa...

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...