Starting at 38-98 General Lyon Rd, Eastford, CT and ending at 2-164 Eastford Rd, Ashford, CT ~8.06 miles to finish Natchaug, 8.69 to return to parking – 4hrs 19 mins
The second half of the Natchaug Trail did not disappoint. It continued to be a very beautiful hike. Starting at General Lyon Rd, we did have a very brief road walk, but we were welcomed to the woods by Ned’s Steps — thanks Ned!
The trail was primarily flat with a few gentle inclines and maybe one or two hills that our calves took note of, (of course they are closer to the end of the trail.) Being a cooler winter day, the majority of the trail was hard-pack snow and ice, enough so that a few of us donned our spikes. The cold also provided frozen water ways and cool ice “displays.”
We saw some interesting tracks along the way: birds, deer, possible coyote, and rabbits. For a good majority of our hike, we were the only human tracks, and come to think of it, we didn’t pass any other people all day. We did encounter an owl though. Possibly the same one three times. It flew across the trail once, (so cool!) from tree to tree another time, and later we heard some really strange bird calls that I think also belonged to the owl. I cannot be 100% sure, but based on what I saw and heard, I believe it was a northern hawk owl.
Some of the notables from this section of trail: ponds and brooks including the Bigelow Brook, a shimmery silver birch, low mountain laurel hedges, hemlocks and more.
One surprise on the trail is the The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp. As we were approaching I spotted two yurts in the distance and got really excited. As we continued on we came to a sort of clearing surrounded with trees that all had hand-painted inspirational signs on them. We didn’t know what we were looking at until later — since it had yurts I just assumed it was great. This was confirmed once I found out which camp it was!
The trail ends and meets up with the Nipmuck. Instead of a two horizontal lines marking the end of the trail there is a smiley face. We took the right and headed back to the parking.
Adventurers included: Jes, Dana, Bryan, Mike and Dogo