Hike #951; Kent to Cornwall Bridge

Hike #951; Kent to Cornwall Bridge CT

7/10/16 Kent to Cornwall Bridge CT with Jim “Uncle Soup” Campbell, Captain Soup (David Campbell), Jennifer Berndt, James Quinn, Edward DiSalvo, Terri Allen, and Shannon Dealaman.

Our next hike would be the next in the series to hike the Appalachian Trail northbound, as well as some other stuff I’d been wanting to share locally.
This would also be a milestone in that it would again be the farthest connective east I’d ever reached on any of my hikes.

Mirror group shot

After meeting in Cornwall Bridge, along the Housatonic River, we shuttled down to the town of Kent where we started at a little art park, with strange metal fabricated pieces as well as some odd metal pumas. There was also a fun mirror for a group shot.

Pumas in Kent

We headed from the start in the town of Kent walking to the north along Rt 7. Although one of the busier roads, it was still quite pretty and not too terrible to walk. This would be the worst part of the hike, and that’s not too bad.
The goal was first to visit the Eric Sloan Museum.
Eric Sloan has become a great person of interest to me, because his opinions, writings, and art, to me at least, are sort of on the fringe of what other people consider to be so, and his work, while historic in nature is also very personal. There’s something very special when an artist can teach you something and at the same time make it an equally personal piece.

A train at the Sloan-Stanley Museum

I feel a kinship to people who have the ability to do this, because it is both a selfish thing, as well as a charitable thing. It’s not just a biographical thing, it’s sharing what we love about the world through our own eyes, the facts as well as our own interpretation, and it’s beautiful. There, I feel, fewer examples of such works available today, and when something informative and personal comes out, I very much enjoy it (it makes me think of Wheeler Antabanez’s “Nightshade on the Passaic” from several years ago, a perfect example of what I’m saying.).
Eric Sloan squandered away his inheritance from his father and ran away at the age of twenty, across the country to become a sign painter, doing things like the “Red Man Tobacco” signs.

Sloan Museum

Often times in life we set out to do things that take on entirely different lives of their own, and pull us in directions we’d never have expected to go.
I once thought I’d be an artist or a cartoonist, but always loved hiking. I never considered parks to be much of a career opportunity until I realized I didn’t like the commercialization and attention seeking aspects of business art. I like attention, but I’d prefer to get it a different way.
Sloan, in his travels found himself mystified by the desert sky in New Mexico. He decided to try to tell the story of the sky through paintings, but that wasn’t enough. Wanting to know more, he went to school for meteorology.
Sloan found himself alienated by the heavy focus on mathematics involved in meteorology, and one of his professors informed him to look into the old Farmers Almanacs. He’d found the romance in weather he sought in it’s pages.

Eric Sloan Museum

Fascinated by what he read, Sloan found himself shifting gears from telling the story of the sky to telling the story of the early American. He said the early American was far more in touch, more aware of all that was around him than the modern American. Each tool had a purpose, each was part of a diverse craft.
Sloan saw fit to record these pieces of history through his art and writing in what I feel are some of the most personal, but also most informative historic works I’ve read.

Eric Sloan Museum

Unlike other artists, Sloan’s work seems to have a sense of purpose unlike others I’ve seen. His presentation comes across as important to the viewer as the subject matter for which he is trying impart.
Sloan saw fit to record subtle nuances of history, the everyday things that everyone took for granted, for future generations to interpret. Even to those who don’t know Sloan by name, they will likely recognize his art and books from calendars or from within frames on someone’s wall. By the time of his death in 1985, Sloan had created over 15,000 pieces.

Sloan's workshop

Jillane first took me to the Eric Sloan museum a few years ago. I had some interest in it, but I really didn’t know a whole lot about him. I of course recognized his books the same as most anyone with an interest in history or art might, but I was more touched by the museum in his work than I think she realized. I found myself leafing through his books, of which I think she has all. Different types of wooden beams, dovetail joints in barns, all of the history was there and felt tangible. I love how Sloan felt his purpose was to tell a story, not simply express himself.
We walked the road to the entrance to the Eric Sloan Museum, where there is also a steam locomotive and all sorts of equipment at a separate museum. I wouldn’t have the time to bring the entire group to see all of that, but we did do the Eric Sloan museum completely.

Kent Iron Furnace

The museum is one of my favorite’s I’ve ever been to. Each exhibit is a set up that was personally laid out by Eric Sloan himself. You’ll find no printed tags on the walls labeling each item. Each historic piece is described by Sloan, in his own beautiful penmanship carefully painted onto boards and signs. The museum itself is a work of Sloan’s art.
We watched a little documentary, viewed the entire museum and checked out Sloan’s own studio, assembled for the public to see as it was at the time of his death.
Behind the museum is the remains of the Kent iron furnace, built in 1826. When the property was preserved, it needed to have historic significance, and so the furnace site was a great place for the Sloan-Stanley Museum to be placed.

Eric Sloan

From the furnace, there was a little trail going out back. We walked it a bit, and it went toward the Housatonic River, but much of it was getting pretty badly overgrown. We opted not to continue too far on it and make our way back from the furnace to the railroad tracks.
We headed up hill and turned right onto the tracks heading south, back toward Kent. For once, I was on a railroad line I knew next to nothing about. I still know pretty much next to nothing. It’s still active today, but I don’t know what it was called or anything about it’s history. I suppose as we do more up in that area I’ll eventually find a sign or something that will give me a clue to what I should look up for further details.
We passed the locomotive and then kept on a path just next to the tracks for a while. It looked like maybe a new trail was going in, but I can’t be sure. The line still had a whistle marker post on it as we reached the grade crossing coming into the middle of Kent. There is still an old station in town as well.

The dumpster ruins it

Kent is really a beautiful town. I looked at the amazing view of the Housatonic Valley, and then toward Pine Ledge beyond, and it looked like a rustic setting Eric Sloan would have painted, but it was messed up by the bad placement of one dumpster.

We turned right on Rt 7 in downtown Kent, right at the train station. The station was in really nice shape, as was pretty much everything in the town. As we continued to walk south, we started seeing the Appalachian Trail hikers. These AT towns, especially this time of year, must get overrun by hikers.
We next came across a liquor store, and went in to get some drinks. Captain Soup asked for a bag to put his drink in, to which the clerk said “You don’t need it”. Apparently, there is no open container law in Connecticut? Or at least not in Kent I suppose! Captain Soup happy drank of his bottle as we walked down the street.

Kent Station

We soon turned right on Macedonia Road, heading toward the Housatonic River crossing. There were a lot of places I’d have loved to stop: a book store, a cheese store. This is a nice little town! I finally folded when I saw a place had hot dogs, and I knew it was cheap enough that I could get some.
We had a few snacks at the store, then made our way across the bridge and past an old school campus on the left. A nice paved path followed closely to the road which kept us out of traffic for a little bit of time. We continued on the road to the north until we reached where the Appalachian Trail crossed over.

Captain Soup

This was where we left the Appalachian Trail on the previous hike in the area.
We turned right and crossed a stile over a fence, then passed through a field before a log bridge over the Macedonia Brook. On the other side, a side trail led up along the brook toward Macedonia Brook State Park, where we finished the previous hike in the area. This time, we’d continue on the Appalachian Trail up to the top of Pond Mountain.
The trail was somewhat rugged at first, with a few spots with stone steps and such, but we got to the top of the hill pretty quickly.

AT near Kent

When we reached the top, there was a bit of a view of the countryside. The guide book on this section described some views that really were hardly views at all, but some of the AT sections do that. Even a slight view in some areas breaks some of the monotony along the way.
We crossed Skiff Mountain Road along the way and climbed a bit more.
We continued along mostly the top of a hill for a while until we came to an outstanding overlook known as Caleb’s Peak.

Overlook

Caleb’s Peak was a more unobscured view than what we’d seen so far. We were looking out the Housatonic River valley from this point, which was quite beautiful. Captain Soup and I went down the rocks a bit to see if we could get a different angle on it.
There was a guy there with his dog who talked to us while we were taking a break. He let us know what we had coming up, and how the next sections below Saint John’s Ledges would be among the easiest on the entire AT. His friendly dog wandered around looking for attention from us all.

View from Caleb's Peak

We hung out here for a bit before moving on. The guy at the rocks told us we had one pretty tough climb down just ahead. He took a group photo for us, and we were on our way.

View on St. John's Ledges

After a little while, we came to another view, at the top of St. John’s Ledges. From here, we could see a bit up and down the Housatonic River. It was quite a nice little spot on a short side trail down steps.
We continued from here, and the trail got very rugged and steep, as the guy had told us recently.
We went down sections of both steps as well as a lot of rocks that sometimes required some hand holds to keep from tripping. As we went down, we came to some other more vertical/slightly slanted ledges with a big group doing rock climbing. We continued down hill from here, and soon the trail reached River Road.

AT on St. John's Ledges

The trail turned left here along the gravel road. This was the start of the long, easy stretch of the AT.
River Road once continued beyond where it now ends. The AT follows it out to a spot where there was once a school, which is now just a foundation of some sort off to the left of the trail, and where the “North Kent Bridge” used to stand before it was washed away in a flood. We could see out in the river where the pier would have been at the center of the bridge, but little else.
The old road ahead is not immediately obvious while walking the trail. At a lot of points it just looks like a footpath like anywhere else.

North Kent Bridge site

We headed to the north for a bit, and there were occasionally some remnants of what was the road. Where a stream came in from the left, there were abutments, now capped with some half cut logs for the trail bridge. I also noted on one stream that came in that there was some sort of abutments or dam ruin along it, just up from where the trail crossed. There was probably a mill or something along this stretch.
We stopped along the way to take a dip in the Housatonic, which was really refreshing. Amazingly, despite the warmth, only James and Jen and I wanted to go in.

We also stopped along the way at another trail shelter. I always try to take the side trips to the shelters along the trail, just to see the differences and how nice they are. Unlike the previous ones we’d seen on the previous hikes, this one had a lot of people already in it. We continued on and I took another dip in the river. It started to look more like a road, then less again.
The trail turned left, leaving the river for a time, and soon made it’s way along the edges of some open fields. Jen and James got pretty far behind me, and all of the others were very far ahead of me. I continued pretty much by myself up in the middle between them, and we regrouped again where the trail left the river side.

AT

We passed Stewart Hollow, continued, and reached a more developed looking road, Dawn Hill I think.
We started heading up Silver Hill on the AT, and passed another developed campsite to the right, with a pump. I ran out to it and refilled our water bottles, then came back.
I continued speedily up to the top of Silver Hill, then down the other side again in the middle of the group. When we reached the bottom on Rt 4, much of the group had already turned right and headed back to the cars on the road, which was also blazed as a blue side trail.

Crossing Guinea Brook

It was easy enough to get back to the cars by just following the road, but I really wanted to do the last little bit that I’d had planned. That would mean climbing to the top of Breadloaf Mountain and then coming back down.
Fortunately, Uncle Soup and Shannon were both up for the craziness, and we moved super speed down and across Guinea Brook, at a very pretty rock hop section, and then climbed rather steeply up the start of Breadloaf Mountain. On the way up, we also crossed the dirt surface Old Sharon Road, which also had blue blazes. I figure this and the other road must be a high water route for the AT.

View from Breadloaf Mountain

We crossed the road and ascended further up Breadloaf Mountain, and then reached the terminus of the Mohawk Trail, part of the Connecticut Blue Blazed Trail system. I’d been wanting to do this trail system since I found out about it by accident with a guide I’d seen at REI I think it was. This particular trail was the earlier route of the AT, and was then added to the Connecticut system. I hope soon to hike more of this trail and more of the other trails heading east across Connecticut.

Mohawk Trail below Breadloaf Mountain

We turned right on the Mohawk Trail and ascended slightly more, and soon reached a lovely overlook of the Silver Hill and Housatonic Valley. That view alone was worth the climb we just made.
From there, the Mohawk Trail descended gradually from Breadloaf Mountain, past some old stone walls and ruins and such. The trail was really nice and well worn, and we were almost finished. We could hear the cars on the road before we could see them, and then the trail spat us out onto Rt 4 at a nice little parking area. From there, the trail was marked across the Cornwall Bridge, but we turned left down the River Road to the underside of the bridge, where we had parked.
That spot on the Housatonic River was the farthest point east I’d ever reached on these hikes, and it felt awesome to know I’ve got so many other trails and options for places to explore from this exact point. James was feeling dead tired from no sleep, and I was wide awake with energy from the prospects of more to come, so I drove his car back.
Overall a very cool area to explore.