Starting at 25 Iron Mine Lane, Ashford and ending at Rte 197 (Bigelow Hollow State Park) in Union ~ 12.5 miles and 6.5 hrs

I loved this section of the Nipmuck! It was gorgeous! So green and lush. The only problem were the freaking deer flies, but I will get into that later. In true Tangled Up In Blue fashion, we thought we were only doing an 8 mile journey, but ended up doing 12.5 on an extremely muggy day. Fortunately we are all troopers and managed to survive without any meltdowns.

Picking up the trail on Iron Mine Lane, we were instantly greeted by a dirt road into the woods. After a very short hike we reached the Pixie Falls Spur Trail. It is definitely worth the side trip to see the little cascading falls surrounded by by beautiful moss covered rocks.

As we continued back on the trail we entered a section that is claimed to be more than 400 years old. Soon after we passed over a steam, we entered the Yale Forest, and let me tell you it is amazing! The trees are tall and come in all different sizes and shapes.

The trail is an orange carpet of pine needles, then rocks, then moss, then dirt then back to pine needles, repeat. It is surrounded by gorgeous moss-covered rocks, trees, mountain laurel, ferns, and mushrooms.

This was probably the hilliest section of the Nipmuck. There were a lot of ups and downs. One section was deemed dangerous so there is a staircase to safely carry hikers down with the message: “by now you are visiting a place that you see all too infrequently yet it is a major part of who you are”. (I was a little disappointed that the stair didn’t say yetis.)

As the hills continue, you do get one look-out point which had a convenient bench in a tree. We took advantage of this to rest for a moment and have some water. The trail continues up a rock ledge and then down to some mucky areas. The rocks can be slippery and again this trail earned the name “Slip Muck.”

As beautiful as this trail was with gorgeous sights and lovely bird sounds (we even had an owl), at this point the mosquitos and deer flies started attacking and it was miserable. We reapplied bug spray but between the heat and humidity we sweat that off pretty quickly. Being bit, listening to the buzzing, having them get in our eyes, and swatting them out of our hair and faces was putting us into sensory overload. “F$%^&*! Bugs,” was shouted more than a few times.

We continued on for miles and discovered more hills as we encountered Walker Mountain to Coye Hill. This section proved Newtons Law of Hiking: Every down hill has an equal and opposite up hill. (Okay, so it is Dana & Jes’s law — but it is true!)

We finally came to the Nipmuck Trail sign on Rte 197 and were ecstatic. Next hike here will finish the trail!

Adventurers included: Jes, Bryan, Dana and Dogo