2021-10-14, Cornwall Conservation Trust Day Preserve, Cornwall, CT

 On 2021-10-14, I visited the Cornwall Conservation Trust Day Preserve in Cornwall, CT.  I made an interactive map of the preserve, with location numbers.  Here's a link to the interactive map: https://arcg.is/Cu5KT  .  Here's a static screenshot of the interactive map.


1.  Where I parked, in an easy-to-miss grass lot that hold about five cars, if the cars are strategically parked.  If going northwesterly on CT-128, you come to a firehouse, turn around (like I did) ---- you've gone too far.

1.  The parking lot is the parking lot both for the Day Preserve and Gold's Pines, a State of Connecticut preserve that includes a white pine that is billed as the state's tallest tree.



1.  A map of the Gold's Pines preserve.



1.  Note that there are several "charcoal mounds" in the Gold's Pines preserve.  I found a charcoal mound, which I call a charcoal hearth, on a yellow-blazed trail leading to the top of The Cobble.



2.  The was a separate kiosk for the Day preserve.  You can get to an online posting the map displayed on the Day Preserve kiosk at https://cornwallconservationtrust.org/images/Day/Day_Preserve_Map_web.jpg .  Here's the posted map.

2.  My marked-up version of a portion of the online map.  I couldn't find a portion of the trail shown on the map.  The blazes are now simple all-yellow rectangles.  There are no blazes in the field.  When I visited the preserve in 2017, the grass in the field was longer than I was willing to walk through.  A portion of the trail is an unblazed dirt road that continues out of the preserve to Cobble Hill Road.





3.  From the second kiosk, I walked up a nice yellow blazed trail to a field that appeared to have been last mown around September 1.  I walked around the perimeter of the field looking for the trail shown on the map.  I didn't find the trail, but I did find a dirt road at the southeast corner of the field. I followed the dirt road to Cobble Hill Road.



4.  I followed the dirt road back up to the field while looking for the path shown on the map.  I did not find the path.  When I got to the field and walked around the rest of the perimeter, I found a yellow-blazed trail leading out of the northeast corner of the field to the top of The Cobble.



Between 4 and 5.  These rocks seemed to mark the actual top of The Cobble.



5.  Almost a view.



Between 4 and 5.  



6.  Someone had very carefully constructed steps where the lower yellow trail passed through an old stone wall.




7.  More steps at another point where the lower yellow trail passes through a stone wall.



8.  Another set of steps through a stone wall.



9.  My tentative identification of this fungus on the lower yellow trail:  Pig's Ears
(Gomphus clavatus).  Another possibility: Eastern Black Trumpet (Craterellus fallax).



9.   Looking down on fungus.



10.  A view of Mill Brook.
















David Reik

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