Shelton 2020 Trails Day, in 2022, Finally

The Shelton Trails Committee celebrated 2020 Trails Day finally on June 4, 2022.  The series of trail improvements and re-routes along the Paugussett Trail at Indian Well State Park along with the Tahmore Trail on the Shelton Land Trust Preserve were completed in 2020, but all the public hikes were cancelled due to Covid and the resulting shutdowns.

There have been a lot of hiking on the trails during Covid, but not a lot of organized public hikes in groups, for obvious reasons.

 So today, under perfect sunny skies, in 2022, a public hike finally took place to enjoy all the improvements as part of the National Trails Day celebrations.

Two dozen happy hikers and 3 more-so happy dogs came together at Indian Well State Park to enjoy a great Saturday morning outside.

Teresa Gallagher gave a run down of the hike route, along with the trail improvements that were done before and during Covid.

We made it up the stairs and worked our way toward the trail junction.  The woodlands were amazing well lit due to the leaf wilt blight hitting the beech trees along the hillside.  It may be a forerunner of another massive die-off of an native tree due to invasive pests.

The view of the Housatonic River from the overlook was fine, if a little hazy.  You could see all the way to downtown Shelton.

Folks enjoyed the view of the river.

We then hiked up to the high point on Tahmore Trail the Shelton Land Trust property.  The views are better here in the Fall when the leaves are down.

The Mountain Laurel were starting to bloom in places.

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There were multiple groups depending on your hiking speed.  Some took the trip to the waterfalls, and others came back to the parking lot on the blue/red trail.

Everyone made it back successfully, and all had a good time.  Thanks to everyone one who helped out: Val, Ellen, Luis, Teresa, Bob, & Terry.  And thanks to everyone who came out to help us celebrate our 2020 hike, rebooted, so to speak.