Another Paugussett Reroute at Indian Well

The new Paugussett Trail route

Yet another trail relocation at Indian Well!  This time it's the section between Route 110 and Indian Hole Brook, near The Maples. 

Reroute is in pink

This time around the main problem to be addressed was the chronic dumping and littering down the embankment holding up Indian Well Road.  There are the eternal beer cans, but every year there is also something big and new that gets dumped down the hill. This year it was about 50 tires and a queen sized mattress. Last year it was also tires. Before that were bags of construction debris. It's always something, and months go by with hikers walking past a pile of garbage before we can arrange to have it removed.  

View from the old section of the Paugussett, now closed

The relocation also gets the trail off of Indian Well Road, and further away from traffic and noise.  This is an interesting corner of the park that is seldom visited. There's a pond and criss-crossing historic roadbeds along the river slope, as well as ruins from who knows what. 

The new view instead of those tires

Lidar image 
New trail is dark blue. Old Trail light blue.
Yellow is 1867 "highway"
Orange is the original Indian Well Rd
(click to enlarge)

Lidar is famous for revealing ancient cities and pyramids hidden in jungles, but it also finds old Connecticut roads. The image above is pretty complex and attests to how this difficult terrain along the Housatonic River has prompted the rerouting of roads through the years.  The existing Route 110 and Indian Well Road are easy to see on the Lidar image.  An older version of Indian Well Road is highlighted with orange. Indian Well Road was shifted up the slope a bit during the Great Depression as part of the WPA program, leading to impressive stone retaining walls. The now abandoned trail route followed part of this abandoned section of Indian Well Road. 

The old highway from 1867

Another track revealed on the Lidar image above has been highlighted in yellow. This corresponds to the main highway shown on a Shelton map from 1867.  The old road has an impress amount of earthwork associated with it. It was a big, wide cart path. The new Paugussett route runs below the base of this road for a ways before climbing the embankment to follow it briefly before turning up the hill towards Route 110. 

It's a peaceful spot. But it didn't used to be. This is where the former Leavenworth Landing was located in the 1700s. There was a shipyard and port and it was the busiest part of Shelton (technically, there was no Shelton yet - it was known as the Ripton Parish section of Stratford at the time). There was a bridge across the river at one point, although it washed out and was replaced by a ferry. All this was happening at what is now Indian Well State Park and the "Derby Narrows" where the river is constricted below what is now Osbornedale. By 1812, the shipyard had closed down.  The Lidar image shows the old highway going south towards the river near the Derby Narrows before it disappears under probable piles of sand washing down the embankment. One can imagine carts loaded with trade goods from the White Hills heading for port. 

Switchbacking on the slope to Rt 110

The drawback to this new route is the steeper climb up the hill to cross Rt 110, although it goes pretty quick. The old route was more gradual, while the new route stays near the bottom of the slope as long as possible (for the peace and quiet) before switchbacking up the slope to Route 110.  Road noise gets a lot louder as you climb the hill, but when you get up to the road you're already at the junction of Route 110 and Indian Well at the big park sign and the standard CFPA blue oval sign marking the trail crossing. You just cross Route 110 (carefully!) instead of walking along Indian Well Road like you used to. Less road, more quiet woods.