Indian Well Reroute Part 2

UnitedHealthcare employees and their nice white shirts

CFPA held another work party on a beautiful spring day to begin the second reroute of the Paugussett Trail at Indian Well State Park, this time with volunteers from UnitedHealthcare.

Benching in a trail is hard work. 

The second reroute is much longer than the first, with about a quarter mile of new trail needed to reach the overlook, and much of this new trail needs to be benched into the side of the hill. At the end of the day, the crew had benched in 750 feet of trail.

The Indian Well overlook sits atop a long rock formation that caps the slope and forms one long series of cliffs.  The old route goes straight up this rock formation and reaches the overlook in 650 feet, but it's hazardous hiking downhill and the trail is eroding badly.

The new flagged route follows the base of the rock until the cliffs end, then rises gradually, reversing direction with a switchback to rejoin the existing trail north of the overlook. The hike will be about a quarter mile longer to reach the overlook from the parking area. The routing at the top has not yet been determined, but it's likely that part of the existing trail will be converted to a spur to the overlook for at least the short term.

Lost in the jungle?

The new route is not yet ready to hike and you would have to search through the woods to even find it. The connecting ends are done last so as not to lead people onto an unfinished trail.

Many thanks to the folks from UnitedHealthcare for getting those nice white shirts dirty and creating this new route.

Mending Fences....Again

Fence repairs are an ongoing project due to natural deterioration and human intervention. But this time there was a dangerous situation, with a section of fence entirely gone, at a high point in the dam. a few of the fence posts had bruises that were most certainly caused by contact with a moving object. Bicycle? Dirt bike? ATV? If either of the latter two, they are definitely prohibited from the rec path and should be reported to the police immediately.
Click on photos to enlarge

Pressure treated pine replacement rails brought to the work site

Anthony and Allan start hauling some of the tools needed.  Nothing is as much fun on a rainy Saturday morning as some quality time with a diggin' bar.

We access the RecPath at the Canoe Launch on Constitution Boulevard North, right across from the Shelton Intermediate School.

And Rich followed them in to make sure they didn't run off with the post hole digger.

We lugged the new replacement fence rails (pressure-treated this time) and posts (locust) along the RecPath

We pulled out the old broken posts, and loosened some of the others.  Out with the old ... in with the new. Rails, that is!

At least one damaged post also had to be replaced.  I don't think Rich knows how to take pictures of people's good sides.  Wait, maybe this is our good side.

Anthony, Allen and Jimmy digging out an old stump to get the new bottom rail in place.

And so it went down the line, as the rain got a little heavier, we tried to get the worst sections repaired before the main part of the storm hit.  Dig out near the post, remove the broken rails, slide in the new rails - sometimes with some loving taps from our Fine Adjustment Tool; a 12 lb. sledgehammer.

With a little digging, tugging, whacking, and backfilling we fixed the worst of the broken fence on the north section of dam.

Jim even used his "foot shovel" to fill in the fence post holes and tamp them down.

And as the rain started coming down heavier we decided to, in the words of our leader Bill Dyer "Let's declare victory and go home".  And it was a good job done at minimal expense to the taxpayer.  Jimmy even felt confident enough of his work that he was leaning on the fence he helped repair.

So, if you are the owner of a local landscaping company looking for experienced fence refurbishers this summer, we can hook you up with some local guys named Jimmy, Allen, and Anthony who know which end of a diggin' bar to use.  We might even throw Jim in too.

Our next work party is May 20th at the Intermediate School where we may cut brush or repair more fence before the National Trails Day Hike on June 3rd.  Come out and enjoy the fun.  Thanks to Val, Bill, Jim, Rich, Jimmy, Anthony, Allen and Terry for helping out.

One of the nice sights in this area is the view of Silent Waters from the Canoe Launch.  Make a point to get out and enjoy Shelton's open spaces.

Wildflowers at the Indian Well Overlook

Sorry about the crappy cell phone pictures, but while Terry was working on cleaning up the Indian Well Overlook the past few weeks, I had to hang out up top in case there was a chain saw accident. While I was waiting, I ran across some spring wildflowers along the edge of the cliff that we don't usually see in this part of the state. The geology and microclimate there seem to be pretty close to Sleeping Giant.

Columbine

These types of wildflowers tend to hide in the nooks and crannies of the rocky cliffs. None of them were visible from the trail. A grassy slope held a single Wild Pink plant.

The upper slope and ledges are home to species usually
found in places like Sleeping Giant

Wild Pink (Silene caroliniana) is also known as Pennsylvania Catchfly. This is a species we planted at the Eklund Native Species Garden early on. It last a year or so and then died out. But here it is, growing on the grassy slope. I'm not sure if I've ever seen this growing elsewhere in Connecticut, but it is native to the state.

Wild Pink

Pale Corydalis is lot like Bleeding Heart, except it's pink and yellow and grows in places you don't expect. Always a pleasant surprise while out hiking. 

Pale Corydalis

Some people tend to get competitive about hiking, like it's some kind of march to accomplish as fast as possible. I encourage people to ask themselves what they saw on their hike instead. Enjoy the trail like a fine wine. There is so much to miss if you go too fast. 

Broken Fence along the RecPath

There is a section of broken fence along the Recreation Path that is a hazard.  It's located at Silent Waters just north of the Canoe Launch.  It was flagged off this past weekend.

There is about a 10 foot drop off from the RecPath to the bottom of the dam so please be careful until this is fixed.  A work party is scheduled for this Saturday at 8:30, and all trail users are invited to participate.  See the Events Page for more information.

It looks like one of the posts rotted, or maybe was hit by something; possibly an ATV.  We've had to replace a lot of non-pressure treated rails before, but this is one of the first posts that's broken.

Shelton's trails are traditionally maintained by volunteers, with some welcome assistance from Parks and Recreation, when they have time.  Spring is tough for City crews due to ballfield and mowing operations.

So, if you enjoy using the trails and open spaces, consider helping maintain them from time to time.  This Saturday would be a good time.  National Trails Day is June 3rd, and we are hosting a public hike as part of Shelton's Connecticut Trails Day Events.  So we're trying to get the RecPath in not only safe shape, but also really good shape going into the summer.  Come out and help out and explore the trails if you haven't been there before.  We're meeting at the Intermediate School Parking Lot at 8:30 this Saturday, May 13, 2017.

You'll be rewarded with a view of Silent Waters in Springtime from the bridge.

The Wild(flower) Bunch

 Spring has sprung! Time for our annual hike in search of the elusive wildflowers. Nature has a way of messing with the timing of the first blooms, and every year we try to guess in advance the perfect weekend for tracking the trillium.

Click on photos to enlarge

What's so funny? This is supposed to be an educational romp

Just out the gate, Teddy holds up the file to check out the environment

Terry is prepared to lecture on the local flora, guidebook in hand

Enjoying the scenery

Terry took every opportunity to point out the numerous different Spring flowers along our route

Over time, fallen trees have made casual hiking challenging, but your Trails Committee makes every effort to clear any obstacles as soon as conditions permit. In this case the situation was compounded by a wet and muddy location

 

 

 

Our furry companions enjoyed a brief respite from the hot and humid conditions

The happy hikers pose for a group photo

Fortunately, Terry pointed out quite an assortment of colorful wildflowers, or we would have had to change the title of this blog entry

 

A picturesque brook winds down through Birchbank. At times it's just a trickle, at others a torrent. Two bridges, built as Eagle Scout projects, provide easy crossing on the trail

Back to civilization! Terry, the Davy Crockett of the Trails Committee, was able to educate us on a variety of plants and flowers on this hike. This was a nice kick-off for what we hope will be a wonderful summer spent enjoying the Great Outdoors!

(Terry as a small boy with his first wildlife encounter)

Indian Well: More Overlook Clearing

We did some more work on the Indian Well overlook restoration today, and were rewarded with the unexpected sight of cars crossing the Route 8 bridge in the distance, along with the Derby-Shelton Dam and gatehouse. Cleared today were small trees or saplings that were tall like poles. The pictures below will speak for themselves. As always, click on the photos to enlarge.

Let's get started! 

After cutting some small trees down below, Terry takes out the most annoying one.

'

Teresa (the chainsaw buddy) spots some Columbine while waiting up above.

Last sapling for the day getting cut. 

The Derby Dam and cars going over the Rt 8 bridge are visible if you have
good eyes or binoculars 

Indian Well Reroute Part 1

Introductions. Look how clean everyone is. 

A crew consisting mostly of REI-Milford employees along with a few locals and CFPA pros took on the challenge of cutting in 600 feet of new trail near the falls at Indian Well. This is the first part of a larger reroute that will bypass the hazardous "butt-slide" up to the overlook.

Completed reroute in red.

The existing trail has two steep sections and a road walk, all hazardous. This section of the Paugussett gets a lot of use from park visitors who are out exploring but who are not hikers. They'll park at the beach and decide to walk over to the falls or the overlook and are not prepared to scale a cliff.

Building the trail down to the brook.

Thanks to the reroute, the first steep section is now closed, and there is also new trail section leading down to Indian Hole Brook. During the summer, CFPA's Rock Crew is planning on building a rock crossing so that the trail can link up with the unmarked trail to the Falls. If it gets flooded, people can always revert back to using the road bridge. In the meantime, people can either use the old route or pick their way across the stream on their own.

Colin explaining how to bench in the trail.

There was a LOT of earthwork on much of the reroute benching into the side of the hill. More work, but now the grade is much easier to walk and less prone to erosion. 

Up on the plateau.

A much easier walk.

Part 2 of the reroute will be longer, with the goal of bringing people up to the overlook without needing to climb up the steep rock formation. The new route will head north along the base of the rock formation, about half way up the slope, until the formation ends, before angling up the hill. There will then be either a spur to the overlook or the trail will do a loop back to the south up to the overlook.

All done! Time for pizza.