Welcome to the December 31st edition of our Hiking Adventures in Pictures

Welcome back to a second dose of our Hiking Adventures in Pictures.

The last two hikes we have done were a bit weenie. Not by choice, mind you. There has been allot of snow and ice on the trails, and we didn't want to get hurt falling and breaking our necks. This week's hike was not a weenie hike, by any means.



We chose one of my favorite trails this week, the Chatfield Hollow Trail. It begins at the Chatfield Hollow State Park, located about 5 or 6 miles north of the Clinton Malls. This is the same trail that everyone remembers so well when Sof and Deb were stung by all those bees back on September 1st.



Everyone met at the the Chatfield Hollow State Park bright and early. We immediately noticed as soon as we crossed the street that the trail started right there instead of up the road, where it used to be back in September. We were pleased not to have to walk the road, and I'm sure that's why this was done.



There was a short, but very sturdy bridge as soon as we entered into the woods, and we stopped there to snap a picture.

This trail has allot of rock formations, (one of the best rock formations on a trail I have see yet) and there was still quite bit of ice and snow around, so we still had to be careful where we placed our feet. In a few areas it was very slippery, but in most places, we were able to stretch our legs out.



Towards about our loop-d-loop point, we all were starting to feel the affects of taking it easy the last 2 weeks. We all were tuckered out, but we knew we had about 3 or 4 miles of hiking to go. We all were getting tired. At one point, Sof scolded Rob for not looking, (or sounding) tired enough. All in all we did about 9 miles and a hard 9 miles at that. We all were very glad to be back at our cars for lunch.



We ate lunch at CafeNV, and decided to relax inside Starbucks while sipping our lattes and munching on banana-nut bread. Life is good!

We missed you Bobby Goat Gruff,

See everyone next week!
Happy New Year!

Joe

Welcome to the December 24th edition of our Hiking Adventures in Pictures

Welcome Hikers!

I'm posting our Christmas hike a little late, but here it is...

Since there was a significant amount of ice and snow on the ground that day, we decided to do a very flat hike with not many obstacles. Bluff Point was the perfect choice in this situation.



As it turned out, the first half of Bluff Point was extremely slippery, and we were trying our damnedest not to slip and fall. We were lucky, and didn't, thank-God. The second half of our hike was less slippery than the first, but we were still hiking with stiff legs, making sure.



We did meet a group of three hikers who mentioned that one of them has hiked all of the Blue blazed trails in Connecticut... some 400 or so miles in all. They did mention that Ct's blue trails have since been expanded to about 6 to 7 hundred miles. It was nice to share the love of the outdoors with fellow hikers.



When we were almost back to our cars, we also passed a friend who I work with, Richard, and his girlfriend, who were just starting their hike that morning. We wished them a successful hike, warned them about the ice, and we exchanged our Merry Christmas greetings.

Well, here are the best of the pics from our Christmas hike.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Joe

Welcome to the December 17th edition of our Hiking Adventures in Pictures

Good Morning Hikers!

This past week we hiked about 5.7 miles through about 4 inches of packed ice and snow. In most places, our weight barely broke the ice under our feet and made our adventure a bit more physically challenging.

As soon as we started into the woods, we realized that it was going to be significantly more difficult to keep on the trail because of all of the snow cover. There was virtually no paths to follow, because we were the only ones crazy enough to venture off into the woods in the first place. We did learn one thing however, whenever we were in doubt on where the trail was going, nine times out of ten we followed the deer tracks. I am convinced that there are far more deer following the blue trail then hikers.



One really interesting thing about this week's hike was all of the exposed deer, bird, squirrel, and dog tracks everywhere. God only knows what other tracks we came across. But they were everywhere. The loose snow made it really easy for us to see where all of our furry friends have traveled the last couple of days. It really was a treat to see all of that.



Without going into further detail, here are the pictures I took during our hike.

See everyone next week.
Joe

Welcome to the December 10th edition of our Hiking Adventures in Pictures

Good Morning Hikers.

This week, Deb and I were on our own, so we decided to hike somewhat close to home, but not too close...

We were planning on going hiking on Saturday, but we were just too busy, so we ended up doing it on Sunday morning instead.



We got up a little late, and then leisured out of the house at about 10am or so. We were at a Christmas party at Maureen and Brian's house till pretty late, so we really enjoyed the extra time getting ready without having any time constraints. So, we were at our chosen trailhead, located at the intersection of Shetucket Turnpike and Pachaug Trail at about 10:45am, after taking a detour so that Deb can use the facilities at the Pachaug Camping Area.



We headed north, past Dawley Pond, and then over a very thin, and long, double-log walking bridge which crosses a dam at Great Meadow Pond. We snapped some pictures and then continued north. The ground was a little wet, and there was patches of snow cover everywhere, but not over the grass in most places. We then continued on at a fairly quick walking pace on a private dirt road, then over to the Porter Pond camping area. At this point we decided to continue heading north and to lengthen our hike by going up to see the scenic overlook at the end of Pharisee Rock Trail. That added a few extra miles to our planned hike, so we knew we would be pretty tired by the time we were finished.



We reached our midpoint at approximately 1pm, took a few pictures, and then decided to pick up the pace a bit to try to get out of the woods by 3pm. We pretty much maintained our pace and ended up making it back to our car at 10 minutes till 3. All told, we hiked 12.8 miles in about 4 hours, according to the distances published in the Connecticut Walk Book.



I don't know about Deb, but my legs feel it more this week than any other hike we've done.

ok, see everyone next week,

p.s.
We missed everyone this week!
Joe

Welcome to the December 3rd edition of our Hiking Adventures in Pictures

Good Morning Hikers,

I'm going to make this week's newsletter short, but sweet, so here we go...

This week's hike we decided to start at Wyassup Lake, hike across RT2, over the Hewitt's Pond Dam Pedestrian Bridge, and towards the Stonington Dump. We turned around short of the dump, at the point at which Rob's pedometer read 4.5 miles. We then did our loop-d-loop and hiked back to Wyassup Lake.



Rob's pedometer read 9.3 miles when we finally reached our cars. Deb was a little nervous beforehand thinking our local adventures were going to be weenie, but we were pretty tuckered out when we got back into our cars. We ate at 84 High St with our good friend Bill, and then we went Christmas shopping, as planned.





ok, see everyone next week,

We missed you Bob,
Joe