2021-6-24, Lefebvre Preserve, East Haddam, CT

 I visited the Edith Lefebvre Preserve, owned by The Nature Conservancy and managed by the Town of East Haddam, on 2021-6-23 and 2021-6-24.  On 2021-6-23, I bushwhacked from an unpaved section of Jones Hill Road to Burnham Brook and back.  On 2021-6-24, I went back and explored some blazed trails I came across on my bushwhack.  I made an interactive map with location numbers that I will refer to.  Here's a link to the interactive map: https://arcg.is/1XXiDK .  Here's a static screenshot of the interactive map:





1.  A sign near where I parked on Jones Hill Road.



2. A contorted tree along my bushwhack route.



3.  The nearer big white oak was dead.




4  I think this was at the southern boundary of the land owned by The Nature Conservancy that was managed by the Town of East Haddam.  I think the land to the south of the boundary was also owned by The Nature Conservancy but not managed by the Town of East Haddam.


5.  I crossed Burnham Brook and walked about 100 feet along a blue-blazed trail, and then headed back towards Jones Hill Road.



6.  On my bushwhack back to Jones Hill Road, I came across what may have been an abandoned hunting camp.

6.  The grate looks like it may have once been a catchbasin grate.


6.  Maybe the hunters shot from this natural blind.


6.  This was the first pressure cooker I could recall finding in the woods.



7.  A walked for a few hundred feet on a blue-blazed trail.




8.  On my 2021-6-24 exploration, while following a red-blazed trail, I walked on this bridge which may have been thirty years old.


Near 8.  A view of a red-blazed trail.  The largely undisturbed ferns suggested that the trail had been getting little use.



9.  I saw two circles of white objects that I decided were emerging ghost pipes, Monotropa uniflora, a flowering plant which doesn't have chlorophyll.


9. 


9. A side view.


10.  Someone did some heavy labor placing the stones for this ford on a blue-blazed trail.



11.  While following a blue-blazed trail, I came across what seemed to be a brand-new gravel parking lot that could hold perhaps ten cars.











David Reik


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