A Walk Across the Giant

Are you in Connecticut?  Yes? - good.  Then get outside now!!  The weather is great (when it's not raining), good hiking temps, and the forests are exploding with Mountain Laurel - little pink or white flowers sparkling all over the place.  Get your friends, pack up the kids and get out there! No time to get out, you think?  Connecticut has more than 70 state parks and 30 state forests. Add the trails in municipal parks, preserves and utilities, and you're minutes from a hike almost anywhere in the state.   Come on out. Got an hour?  Take this little hike along the White Trail at Sleeping Giant State Park. Cross the bridge from the parking lot, onto the White Splash around in the stream a little Summer is almost here - Mountain Laurel in bloom Beautiful open woods After a night of heavy rain, even the trail is a stream. Look for little froggies hopping around the puddles.

   It's been a tough winter - more snow that I can remember.  And while hiking through nearly three feet of fresh powder was fun, the crusty stuff has put a damper on my hikes the last weeks/months.  But I have just a few trail sections to finish at Sleeping Giant, and just a few weekends to do it before winter is over.    I had a six mile hike planned (Greg - that's about two leagues or 480 chains) over the Blue trail, doubling back on one section of the White - starting off at Hartford Turnpike.  This section of the Quinnipiac Trail doesn't see much traffic - compared to the rest of the trail though Sleeping Giant State Park anyway.  I tried to hike it a month ago, but first step in I was thigh deep in snow.  Better to put this one off until some of the ground is visible through the snow, right?    Well, the day finally came.  It hasn't snowed in weeks, and the temperature was supposed to soar into the 50's (or into the ...

It's been a few weeks since I was in Sleeping Giant Park, but it's a great day - humidity's down, a little breezy... - and I had some time to kill, so... From the main parking lot, I took the Orange trail to the Red Circle trail, then on to the Green trail back to it's start on top of the Giant's Chest.  The White, White/Blue and then Blue trails over to the Tower, and the Tower Path back down to the parking lot.  Just about 5 miles over a 2+ hour hike. Looking South from the Giant's Chest - Quinnipiac U, East Rock and New Haven While trails like the Blue and White take you across the tops of the ridges that make up Sleeping Giant, the Orange and Green run along the valleys between them.  The Orange heads up across the south side of the second ridge with views to East Rock and New Haven.  From the Green, you look up at the cliffs below the Tower, and make your way up to the Giant's Chest - great views west to the Giant's Chin and south past Quin...

Today's " Hike A Giant" hike is cancelled due to forecast inclement weather. What??  The sun is out, there's a nice breeze - it's a little hot and humid, but not bad.  Tornado warning for all of Connecticut, 75% chance of scattered and severe thunderstorms.  It's a perfect day to go for a hike! I think there were a few people still there for the organized hike (the Sleeping Giant t-shirt and hats gave them away), but I was a little late and they were already on the way up the Tower trail.  So off I went, up the Orange trail. I figured a west end hike - up the orange, over the green, white and blue, back on the violet (very colorful)- maybe I can get it done before the rain comes.  Ever the optimist.

...he was but an extinct volcano; he had been active in his time, but his fire was out, this good while, he was only a stately ash-pile now; gentle enough, and kindly enough for my purpose, without doubt, but not usable. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain When I think of an extinct volcano, I picture something like this - a mountain peak, maybe a flat top, but there's no question it looks like a volcano. Is there an extinct volcano on Sleeping Giant?  The area's mountains were formed by massive lava flows (the traprock), tipped up after a little fault here and there shuffled the landscape.  But can you find the mouth of a volcano?  There's a spot just off the White trail on the Giant's right knee.  It is a depression surrounded by boulders, filled with water during the spring, but drying out now.  Is it a volcanic crater? 

6 miles, 3 hours. Describe the view of the Giant from the south.  After the head, you see the chest, the hip and leg, the knee, the foot...   the hills, peaks and ridges that make up the Giant's profile.  You know what else they have in common> they are the White Trail.  Up and then down the chest, up and then down the hip, along the leg, up and then down the knee... you get the idea.  This trail is a workout - sometimes hiking, sometimes hands, knees and feet climbing up the rock face.  But along the way are great views of the cliffs, and then Hamden, New Haven and the Sound to the south.