Elevation Ascent: 3,205'
Elevation Descent: 3,284'
Trip Report:
I hiked the Paugussett Trail recently, it's a part of the Blue-Blazed hiking trail system in Connecticut. A remarkably scenic trail despite its location in suburban SW Connecticut. I dropped my car off at the Buddington Road trail head in Shelton and got a ride back to the beginning of the trail, off of East Village Road in Monroe. I was a little rushed heading out in the morning, so after getting dropped off I spent about 10-15 minutes having breakfast and getting my pack in order.I'd say I started hiking about 07:30 and the first two miles are rather nice, following Boys Halfway River down towards Lake Zoar. The trail comes out on Cottage Street which it follows for a couple hundred feet before breaking off into the woods on the left. The trail then starts to climb up to Webb Mountain Park in Monroe. Webb Mountain trails were very wet and was the beginning of several wet stream crossings throughout the hike.
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| One of the many stream crossings encountered. |
Coming out of Webb Mountain, the trail climbs up and out to Thoreau Drive. After a few hundred foot road walk, the trail continues into the woods behind and between houses. The blazes were slightly lacking in this section, as some were faded and a little tough to locate, coupled with the fact that you're basically in peoples' back yards. After a 1/4-1/2 mile, the trail comes out on Boulder Path and continues Okenuck Way where it continues into City of Shelton Open Space at the end of the road.
From here, the trail basically skirts along the ridge above the Housatonic River with a couple of good climbs and some boulder scrambling. It enters the Birch Bank Open Space property. There was a major blowdown on the trail in this section. Getting around was slightly tricky but definitely doable. With no leaves on the trees yet, this section and continuing into Indian Wells State Park had decent views of the river below.
I stopped in Indian Wells at a view point for lunch and a quick break before doing a short but steep climb down to Indian Well road. There is a nice stone bridge built over Indian Hole Brook here and I stopped for a moment to take a photo.
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| Stone bridge in Indian Wells State Park. |
The trail continues alongside the road and climbs up some steps to Route 110. This is a pretty busy state highway, fortunately for me in the middle of a weekday the crossing was easy. Right after the road crossing, you climb up a few hundred feet to Mayflower Lane. There is about a 1,000 foot road walk to the end of Mayflower Lane. The trail starts up again past a metal gate across Meadow Street and heads through some fields here. I spotted a red-tail hawk in the second field.
From here it generally follows some power lines for a little bit, going through various Shelton open space areas. The trail climbs down towards Silent Waters before crossing Shelton Avenue and running along Hope Lake.
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| Panorama of Silent Waters |
This was a really nice section of trail, a very narrow path running right along the shoreline. You then go through Eklund Garden which had some nice specimen trees and a purple azalea bush (I believe) blooming.
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| Entrance to Eklund Garden |
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| Flowering bush in Eklund Garden |
From here, you do several more small ups and downs before coming out to Buddington Road.
The trails through Shelton after Indian Wells all seem pretty well used, Indian Wells itself is pretty well used. The Birch Bank open space section back to the beginning of the trail are definitely not hiked nearly as much. There were a few small sections where blazes were difficult to follow. Lots of stream crossings that required a bit of care (of course this was still in early spring after a very snowy winter). This was a good day hike; good mileage, decent amount of elevation, varied terrain.
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