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 ...

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...

The Naugatuck Trail runs through the East Block of the Naugatuck State Forest in Bethany – from Route 42 near Simpson Pond to Route 8 in Beacon Falls. The 5 ½ mile trail is a shadow of its former self, when it covered a much longer route between the Quinnipiac and Paugussett Trails. Since I was hiking out and back - and adding the three side trails - this hike covered about 10 ½ miles. Trail Map from CT State DEP    Note - you can get a better topographic map with route and full trail description from the Connecticut Forest and Park Association - the Walk Book West .  After all, this is who maintains the trail! There is only space for a couple of cars along the road at the Route 42 trailhead (see map). I parked instead at the Whittemore trailhead just a quarter mile west, and then hiked back to start the Naugie. Old stone walls and foundation from the previous owner. Along the road, there are remnants of stone foundations and walls from homesteads prior to the ...

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...