Blue Blaze trails Redux

On Saturday I walked the blue blazed trail at Bigalow Hollow State Park in Union. No WONDER people get lost up there. The trail is poorly marked and the terrain is sometimes rugged. The planned 5.5 mile walk became one of 10.2 miles. The beavers marked the trees much better as can be seen by these images. For the rugged terrain I will rate this trail as a 7 to 8 out of 10. For the poor marking I will rate it an 87 or so. Sheeesh. Today I hope to connect the trail from Ashford to Union. We will see, I have been having great difficultly trying to follow the blue blazed trails.

Common Courtesy and Luck

Today was another day on the blue blaze trail. This morning I started the trail in Eastford at route 44 and walked north. The trail itself is about 2.5 miles to the next crossroad (Ashford Rd). I then completed the circuit for a total of 7 miles. The trail itself is gorgeous and a hike rather than a walk. I will rate the trail as a 7, you not only need to be fit (at least walking wise) you also need good balance and be able to scramble. As I have mentioned before, some of the trails are through private land and as a user you need to show courtesy to the landowners and stay on the trail (and of course, what comes in with you, leaves with you). The trail winds through what appears to be virgin forest, and the sounds of the forest take you back in time.

When I was done with the walk, I noticed that my glasses where missing. I had dropped them. I know I had them half-way up the trail, so I only had part of the trail and all of the rest of the walk to search. The latter I searched by car and did not see my glasses. So I had to walk back down the trail to look for my glasses. As I went I looked at the path and the ground very close to the path. Since I practiced what I preached I did not deviate from the path at all. About 3/4 of a mile into the forest I saw my glasses in the path. Great luck. But my luck was enhanced since I observed common courtesy. The glasses had apparently not made it back to my pouch after I snapped the picture above.

Blue-Blazed Trails

The Connecticut Forest and Park Association has a series of Blue-Blazed Hiking Trails throughout Connecticut. They claim that there is over 800 miles of such trails, much of it is through public land, but sometimes private owners allow walking on the trails through their land. Their website is: http://www.ctwoodlands.org/. I have already walked some of their trails in Hampton and Chaplin so today I wanted to connect into Eastford. The trails are for the most part well marked with blue blazes (see picture). This particular walk is a very pleasant forested walk. You can park at a trail-head on route 44 in Eastford and travel as far south as you wish until you hit route 97. This part of the walk is about one and a half miles. I would rate the dificulty at a 5 for it's verticle climb (on the way back) of about 300 feet and the sometimes slightly rough walking. As is usual with such trails a double blaze (see below) means to beware of changes in the trail (a turn, a fork, etc.). This would be a great trail to take with friends, but not a picnic walk as there is no place to really set a picnic lunch. You can walk this trail at a fairly quick clip if you want.

Begginings

When I started walking I usually started at home. I was hard pressed to make it to the corner of this short lane. Now this is sometimes the beggining of my somewhat longer walk. On the right are my "Finnish Sticks of Torment". Here in Connecticut I seem to be the only one using exercise sticks while I walk. On the other hand, in New Mexico many of my fellow walkers use similar sticks.

This weekend, for our 28th Anniversary I got me a personal Blackberry for my wife (yeah, I wrote that correctly, she wanted me to have a cell phone and I resisted for as long as possible). My phone has a GPS program my wife found and I am now toying with it. This morning I walked down this lane and walked 10.6 km (6.5 miles or so at 3.6 mph)). What a difference a year makes.

Connections

Sometimes my walks are designed just to make connections. Tuesday part of my walk took me further along route 244 near the Vanilla Bean. The walk involves about 2 miles along this busy road and if I didn't "need' the connection I wouldn't have walked it. Now I just need to make one more connection here and I will have walked the length of route 244.

Today I accidentally made a second connection, well it wasn't planned anyway. I had basically given up on walking the airline, as parts of it in Hampton are a swamp. I was going to make different connection and I "stumbled" across the airline in Chaplin/Hampton line. Against my better judgement I turned onto the airline. The section is absolutely delightful and highly recommended as a nature walk (how come my "better judgement" usually stinks?). The path I took is a gentle 2% slope from Chaplin to Hampton. Part of the fun today was I meet by a gentleman around my age who ws walking his "rescue" Doberman, Sheena, one of the sweetest dogs you would ever want to meet. Sadly this means I need to make the connection, the Hampton swamp. After that I will walk the path toward the intersection with the now abandoned Providence-Hartford RR. I am looking foward to that walk.