2021-9-3, Lantern Hill, North Stonington, CT

 On 2021-9-2 and 2021-9-3, I visited the Lantern Hill area in North Stonington, CT.  I made an interactive map with location numbers that I will refer to.  Here's a link to the interactive map: https://arcg.is/1yO44y0 .  Here is a static screenshot of the interactive map.



1.  Where I parked, in a pull-off on Wintechog Hill Road.  Perhaps ten cars could fit in the pull-off.  In the pre-COVID days, I hear it was possible for people hiking the Lantern Hill trails to park in the Two Trees Inn parking lot.  


2.  I followed the blue-blazed Narragansett Trail to the top of Lantern Hill.  There are different viewpoints near the top of Lantern Hill.  From 2, you could see northwesterly, towards the Foxwoods buildings.



2.  You could also see westerly, towards Lantern Hill Pond.





3.  Another view of Lantern Hill Pond, from an unblazed trail.



3.  A view to the south, towards Long Island Sound.



4.  There was lots of white rock like this in the area.  "Milky quartz" I believe is what it's called.



5.  Another view of Lantern Hill Pond and Foxwoods.



6.  An unblazed trail led to some sort of active sand and gravel quarry.  Why was this pile of broken pieces of concrete there?




5.  Lantern Hill Pond, Foxwoods, and me.



7.  I walked back towards Lantern Hill and followed a trail that ran along the base of milky quartz cliffs.



8.  Red circle blazes with arrows marked a loop.  The blazes were only visible if you traveled around the loop in a counter-clockwise direction.



9.  I walked back along the trail at the base of the cliffs and saw this venomous snake.  Note the wide head.  I can't put the name of the snake here because people could find the exact location where I saw the snake by Googling its name.  People at iNaturalist tell me we can't make it too easy for people to find this species of snake because the snakes are vulnerable.  Are there people who hunt these snakes?



9.  No rattle.



10.  One of the many pitch pines I saw in the area.  Note the clump of three needles.  Some say that pitch pines in Connecticut are endangered.



11.  One of several old cellar holes in the area.




12.  I followed a trail which had some blue, plastic circular blazes to a stream which was, on 2021-9-2, a bit too wide for me to cross.

13.  A followed the blue-blazed Narragansett Trail until I lost track of the trail in a transfer station.  At the edge of the transfer station was this abandoned dog pound.  The Narragansett Trail is a Connecticut Forest and Park Association trail.  




14.  On my way back along the Narragansett Trail, I took this picture documenting recent blow-down cutting.



15.  A young pitch pine.



15.  A close-up of the young pitch pine.



16.  A well-preserved cellar hole where I turned around near the end of my 2021-9-2 travels.  This was as far north as I got on my 2021-9-2 hike.



1.  I met the official CFPA trail maintainer for this section of the Narragansett Trail as I was getting into my car.  I had seen the trail maintainer several times as I was walking the area trails and he was trail running.  He told me that, at some time in the past, a venomous snake of the same species as the snake that I saw had bitten a woman in the area who was wearing sandals.  He said the woman "almost lost her foot."


17.  I went back on 2021-9-3 to finish exploring the northern part of the area.  From the conversation with the trail maintainer the day before, I gather that these old blazes were from an earlier version of the Pequot Trail, another CFPA trail.



18.  One of several well-constructed old stone walls in the area.



19.  A view from a bridge on a trail that was not on Mashantucket-Pequot property.  It seemed that the stream defined the border between Mashantucket-Pequot property and other private property.



20.  Maybe 300 feet of this trail had these official-looking blazes.  The trail led to what appeared to be a private driveway which I didn't follow.  I was in the town of Ledyard here.



19.  The bridge seemed to have been professionally built.



21.  A view of Lantern Hill Pond from a trail with green-circle blazes on Mashantucket-Pequot property.



22.  I drove to the transfer station to see if I could find where the trail went from where I lost the trail on 2021-9-2.  A nice transfer station employee assisted me.  I found blazes on the west side of the transfer station building and along Wintechog Hill Road. The trail has been closed at this point since 2015 according to a notice on the CFPA interactive map.


Here's a screenshot from https://hiking.waymarkedtrails.org/ that gives you an idea of the blazing scheme for the trails in the Lantern Hill area, mostly on Mashantucket-Pequot land.  











David Reik

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