On 2021-10-8, I walked from Esther Street in New Britain to Ledge Road in Plainville using the Metacomet Trail (blue blazes) and the Ledge Road Trail (blue-red blazes). I made a map of the area with location numbers that I will refer to. Here's a link to the interactive map: https://arcg.is/1G5KvX0 . Here's a static screenshot of the interactive map.
I recorded information about blow-downs (fallen trees) on the trails and overgrown section of the trails because the Connecticut Forest and Park Association likes to be made aware of blow-downs and overgrown sections on trails that CFPA administers.
2. Someone did some strenuous work arranging the stones to create an easy-to-hike ford over this tributary to the Quinnipiac River.
5. I thought this turn blaze was confusing. It looked like hikers going southerly were being asked to turn left when the trail actually went right.
5. Some species of aster.
10. This sign was posted where I turned off the blue-blazed Metacomet Trail onto the blue-red blazed Ledge Road Trail. The sign was put up in 2009. The sign says the Ledge Road Trail is blazed with blue-red blazes (correct) but shows a blue-yellow blaze. Maybe the color shown on the sign changed with time.
11. Eastern Ratsnake, (Pantherophis alleghaniensis). The snake did not seem to be concerned about me.
12. The view to the south. You can see West Peak in Meriden and Sleeping Giant in Hamden.
13. There is a maze of bike trails in the area. Several of the bike trails meet the Ledge Road Trail here.
17. I was actually off the Ledge Road Trail here. I was on an unblazed path apparently used by a motorized vehicle. I noticed that most of the topsoil for perhaps a hundred-foot stretch on the path had apparently gone through the bodies of earthworms. Are there more earthworms now than there used to be?
18. I got back on the Ledge Road Trail and made it to Ledge Road. On the way back, I took pictures to show the state of the trail near Ledge Road. The trail was wet and overgrown.
16. On the way back, I decided to see where the unblazed trail went. I turned around when I came to a lawn. I could see a utility vehicle parked at the back of the house down the hill. Maybe this was the vehicle that had been driven on the trail.
17. Where I inadvertently went straight onto the unblazed trail on the way out.
13. The trail goes though some briars here.
11. The snake had hardly moved.
9. I went the wrong way at this intersection with a bike trail both on the way out and on the way back.
8. Not a very welcoming sign.
7. White birch trees near here apparently died at about the same time.
7. A fallen white ash at a ford. There seemed to have been rock-re-arranging at this ford, also.
6. The lost brush and rag.
6. A large, contorted black birch.
6. Looking up at the branches of the black birch.
6. Another fallen white ash, I think.
5. Overgrown, but pretty flowers.
3. A pile of concrete rubble at the end of a dike-like structure. This was about sixty feet off the trail.
1. As I was getting into my car, I noticed a witch-hazel (hamamelis virginiana) plant that was in bloom, the first blooming witch-hazel that I had noticed in the autumn of 2021.
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