2021-10-12, Sweeton Pasture Lot and Noel Baker Preserve, Canton, CT

 On 2021-10-12, I visited two preserves owned by Canton Land Conservation Trust ---- Sweeton Pasture Lot and Noel Baker Preserve.  I made an interactive map of the preserves with location numbers that I will refer to.  Here's a link to the map: https://arcg.is/1rGniX .  Here's a static screenshot of the interactive map.




1. To visit Sweeton Pasture Lot, I parked in a small, unpaved parking area that might hold three cars.



2.  I followed a trail blazed with orange nail-on blazes up a hill.  I passed this red oak (I think) that was about six feet in diameter.  The tree was hollow.



2.  Inside the tree.



3.  This was about fifty feet off the trail.  I was standing next to a tributary to Cherry Brook.



4.  From the brook, the trail went uphill, past a five-foot white oak to a point where the trail joined itself.  Before the intersection, I encountered a five-tree blow-down.  Three of the five trees were cedars.  Maybe the fallen trees could be fashioned into durable posts.



5.  I went back towards the brook.  I recorded this low blow-down near the large white oak.  The problem with any blow-down, even if it's easy to step over, is that the blow-down tends to make the trail look less like a trail and therefore easier to stray from.




6.  I didn't find any Canton Land Conservation Trust parking area for Noel Baker Preserve, but there was a broad, straight section of Hanson Road that one could safely park on.  I found a trail blazed with red nail-on blazes 

7.  I noticed a pitch pine along the trail.  Many say pitch pines in Connecticut are threatened, but I see them frequently in Connecticut.  Note the clump of three needles.



8.  The "Noel Baker Preserve" sign was not near any of the three places where the red trail intersects with Hanson Road.



9.  A stretch of the trail ran along this small brook.



9. Rocks along the brook upstream from a small bridge.



10.  Walking along Hanson Road to get back to my car, I noticed this witch-hazel blossom.



11.  When I got home and made the interactive map, I noticed that it might have been possible to walk between the two preserves along a 375-foot stretch of Bunker Hill Road.  I would have had to bushwhack in each preserve to connect with the blazed trails.



















David Reik

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