Another Great Hike for Shelton Trails Day

We finally lucked out with the weather on one of our trail events this year! Saturday's Trails Day Hike was great & we had 40-45 people out to enjoy a fine walk on the Shelton Lakes Recreation Path.

Dick Skudlarek did a great job with the photography. The mountain laurel were in excellent shape along the powerlines. There are also a number of fine photographs taken by Beren Jones on the Shelton Patch. He hiked the whole route & from the sounds of it Bill & Tom gave him a running history of the Shelton Lakes Greenway in three part harmony. Nice job of reporting Beren.

Mayor Lauretti started out the festivities by reading off his annual Shelton Trails Day proclamation (in between running the Family 5K race at the High School & heading downtown for the Relay for Life).

We started off at Pine Lake, crossed Meadow St. and then up toward the schools (this was part of the route for the race about an hour earlier).

It was a nice turn out and we passed a lot of other families enjoying the RecPath, baseball games, or the Dog Park along the RecPath.

Everybody seemed to enjoy the newly constructed sections of the RecPath overlooking Hope Lake. We then headed out to Oak Valley Road & off to Eklund.


We got a nice tour of the Eklund Native Species Garden - a number of things were in bloom. (We can always use more help for Eklund if anybody is interested in native plants and gardening - call Teresa Gallagher at (203) 924-1555 x 315.

Following Eklund we proceeded along the Bridge-to-Bridge route though shady mature woodlands.

The mountain laurel along the powerlines are really pretty this year. Must be all the snow & rain we had earlier is good for something after all.

Eventually we came out near Huntington Woods where one of the new RecPath sections is under construction.

And by under construction, we mean REALLY under construction. Some hikes will cut a little brush or mow some grass in preparation for Trails Day, buy how many towns go out and chop ledge out the way.

This was one of the most challenging spots on the RecPath to create handicapped-accessible grades. Nothing a big hammer cant fix. The contractors from Fairview Tree Farm & Pruzinsky & Sons are doing a great job on this project.

We then proceeded down the RecPath on some of the more completed sections to the beautiful Land Trust Meadow. Following the boardwalk & a little more open meadow we came to Scenic Lane St. and on to Huntington Center for shuttles and refreshments.

The nice folks at The Higgins Group once again had ice cold water for the hikers; 2 legged and 4 legged. It was much appreciated as we were arranging shuttles back to the starting point.

Time for a little lunch and refreshment at Trails End at the Huntington Street Cafe. One of the nice things about this hike is there are a number of places to grab lunch, an ice cream, or a cold beverage following the hike.

Thanks to everybody at the Chamber of Commerce, Shelton Patch, Valley Sentinel & Huntington Herald who helped publicize our hike. We hope everybody who came out enjoyed the day. Thanks to the Mayor and all the volunteers and everyone else who worked on the trails to make this another fine success.