Hike #1294; Unionville to Quinnipiac

Hike #1294; Unionville to Quinnipiac

2/1-2/2/20 Unionville to Quinnipiac with Curt Donofrio, Sarah Jones, James Quinn, Justin Gurbisz, Kirk Rohn, Jennifer Bee, John DiFiore, and Annika Krystyna

Farmington River

The regular weekend hikes are always something special, and we branch out from local stuff to quite faraway places as of late, with some of the longest trips being the Juniata Valley, Long Island, and Connecticut. To go further would really require overnight stays to work.

Love rock garden

Jillane was going away to take classes in South Carolina, and there is no way I’m staying home alone when I can make the best of the situation and do something further away. Last year, we had a couple of outstanding trips during those times, on the 911 Memorial Trail route out of Johnstown, and on the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail and Metacomet Trail in Connecticut.
It had been a while since I had one a multi-day trip. I really wanted to do something cool, and at first I narrowed it down to two locations.

Unionville Bridge

One would be the 911 Trail route, out farther like from Johnstown south toward the Flight 93 Memorial, and the other would be hiking along the Blackstone River Greenway in Rhode Island toward Providence. I’d never been there before, and it’s supposed to be a beautiful city.
As I was starting to plan out routes and considering which would be better if there were snowy conditions, Captain Soup let me know he would be returning to New Jersey for a vacation.

The original Unionville Bridge

However, he would not be able to attend if I did either of those farther away trips. The Sunday would be Superbowl Sunday I knew, and being the biggest football fan I know, he would certainly have plans for that.

Unionville Bridge

I started looking over somewhat closer things, but far enough that it would be worth doing an overnighter. I looked at either the closer 911 Trail stuff like what we had done out to Mifflintown recently, as well as Long Island with Paumanok Path, and several locations from where we had left off in Connecticut.

Depot in Unionville

After considering all of them, I had the best options in Connecticut.
I had done the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail and Farmington River Trail down to Farmington already from Simsbury and Collinsville areas, as well as lots of other area trails. I figured if we ended up with rain, snow, or ice, we could manage the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail easily because most is paved, and if there was not snow, there are several other opportunities to break off of that and do other types of trails.

The Collinsville Branch

I had originally considered a route out of one of the Farmington Inn locations, but I didn’t know what the conditions would be well enough. I assumed I would have to reserve something ahead of time for at least one night, so I worked with the idea of a fixed trail that would be the same regardless of conditions on Saturday, with the optional changed trip on Sunday. We could then make it up as we go from there depending on weather.

Spare rail holders

The weather turned out to be perfect for the weekend. We didn’t really have to do the railroad bed on Saturday because there was really no snow anywhere except in a few plow piles or maybe on some rocks.
After all of the planning, Captain Soup ended up backing out altogether anyway. Still, we would make it a good trip.
I picked up Jen and Justin to head up to the Comfort Suites Southington-Cheshire which would be our overnight spot.

The rail bed

Using that as a meet point meant we could spot cars both Saturday and Sunday. It would be a contiguous hike both days, but we wouldn’t have to rely on Uber or some other taxi service to get around, as long as enough came out to shuttle.
Things worked out pretty well, and we ended up having a pretty good sized group. James and Sarah would end up meeting late, and the rest of us started only a little later than anticipated.

The rail bed approaching junction

I almost changed the hike to another location because Annika offered to cover us, but that was further up and I would have to plan a different hike on the Tunxis Trail system. This would definitely work for another time, just this time was a bit too short for that kind of planning.
We started in the little settlement of Unionville on Mill Street, adjacent to Union School. There was a good parking lot, which was not where I was originally planning (a commuter lot) but it was actually easier.

The trail now....

We started walking Mill Street to the Wallgreens for a quick break, and then turned onto a path that went down along the Farmington River adjacent to the store.

The trail under construction, 2016

The river was originally known by it’s native American name, Tunxis River.
We passed the pharmacy, and climbed steps up to a lovely Warren through truss bridge over the river, completed in 1939.

The Farmington Canal Heritage Trail

The original Bridge on this site was a Howe truss Covered Bridge built in 1859. That was replaced in 1922 by a steel Pony truss bridge that was destroyed in the Great Hurricane of 1938. The current bridge has survived all of the following storms, and was even submerged but not destroyed in the Flood of ’55.
We headed across the bridge, and then past a couple of little stores toward the former New Hartford Branch of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad, which is now Farmington River Trail.

Whistle marker

It was originally the Collinstown Branch of the New Haven and Northampton Railroad I believe.
I had been here before. When Jillane and I backpacked through from Cornwall Bridge CT to Farmington in 2016 on various different trails, we walked through and I bought some fried chicken at the gas station, which we were so hungry we just engulfed right on the path ahead. That was a particularly interesting trip to me that I really loved, save for the drought conditions that were going on.

The trail

The trail is really very relaxing to walk and the people are typically quite friendly. It would be a pretty nice way to spend the day out.
We walked by an old brick depot on the right, and then passed through less developed area on cut, fill, and shelf grades. I pointed out along the way where there was an old spare rail holder along the left side of the track. It was part made of old railroad rails, which may tell a story itself, of a rail breaking, and using that rail for the purpose of holding the future replacement parts.

Old boxes along rail bed

We continued southeast on the pleasant and familiar path, and then passed parking when we got to Coppermine Road. We skirted New Britain Ave to Red Oak Hill Road, where the railroad bed is now somewhat overtaken by New Britain Ave ahead. We turned left, following the paved trail along the north side of Red Oak Hill Road to the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail crossing.
When I was first here, the trail was still under construction to the south, but completed to the north. I had never been on the trail further south from this point because on both hikes I used a connecting path east out toward Farmington.

Former junction site with Collinsville Branch

The trail is known as the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail because much of it follows the historic route of that canal.
As with most American canals, this one followed the success of the Erie Canal. Benjamin Wright, the engineer behind that project, did a favorable preliminary survey for the canal, and ground broke in July of 1825 at the Massachusetts and Connecticut boundary. Connecticut Governor Oliver Wolcott Jr. broke the ceremonial groundbreaking shovel, which seems like a sign of the days ahead for canals.

Bridge crossing Rt 6

The Connecticut section was known as the Farmington Canal, and the Massachusetts section was known as the Hampshire and Hampden Canal.

On the trail at junction site

The section from New Haven to Farmington was open in 1828, and the remainder to Northampton MA was finished in 1835.
The total length was 86 miles, with 30 in Massachusetts and 56 in Connecticut. The canal was four feet deep and 36 feet wide at the water surface. There was also a branch canal to Unionville, which later served only as a feeder canal to supply water to the main one.

Rt 6 bridge

The canal met financial strains, and the two companies merged to form the New Haven and Northampton Canal Company. Things looked more bleak when the New Haven Railroad opened in 1838.
The canal stockholders petitioned for the right to build a railroad on their canal bed, and work began on that in 1847. The canal closed later that year and the railroad was in operation from New Haven to Plainville in 1848.

Trail in the corporate center area

The railroad merged with the New York, New Haven and Hartford in 1887.
The canal and the railroad did not always run right together. Actually, hey deviated quite a lot. The sad thing is, there is little or no reference to the different routes in any of the online or physical historic documentation you can find on it. It was among the harder ones to actually find the route.
I’ve managed to find some library images that showed exactly the location of the former canal, so I was able to use those to pinpoint basically the canal location as well as bridge and lock sites.

Benches on the trail

We continued walking along the newer trail to the south, which soon came back alongside New Britain Road. The New Hartford/Collinsville Branch joined in along the road, and the junction site is kind of obscured today by that.

Bridge abutment

There was some sort of old electric box across the road we could see. The trail took us ahead to the next stop sign and a safe place to cross. The trail then continued along the rail bed to the south.
We continued to the south, and the right of way moved on further away from New Britain Ave. We eventually came to the crossing of Rt 6, Scott Swamp Road, which was a newer replacement bridge, not an authentic rail overpass.
We soon entered some sort of a corporate center, and the trail turned off of the railroad bed to the left a bit. It paralleled Hyde Road, and then turned left along Johnson Ave.

End of tracks

There were other little paths in the area that lead into all of the corporate centers. One of them was called “Trumpf” which people started making jokes about. Soon, the rail bed regained the old railroad right of way, which was not the same grade as it would have been back in the day, and then came to Northwest Ave where there was parking.
Everyone wanted some kind of snack or drinks, and there was something that said pharmacy to the left, but it turned out that was a corporate center for some pharmacy, not an actual public place. There was nothing in this area.

Busted tracks

Ahead, a single concrete abutment remained from where the railroad once crossed over Northwest Ave. I had checked these spots on Google Street View ahead, and found what looked like a trail going up just to the east of there. I figured we would try that out.

Bummin'

The “trail”, which certainly wasn’t an official trail, but also had no signs saying to keep out, returned to the railroad line, where there are still some tracks in place.

Top side

The tracks end just before the bridge site. Ahead of there, the tracks are unbolted for a bit, and then intact with several tanker cars parked on them for storage.|
Justin climbed up the best looking one, with a walkway deck going all the way across the top. I followed him up. Curt ended up right behind me, and as we looked further down, some of the others had climbed cars a bit further ahead.
The cars were full of all sorts of entertaining graffiti including a duck reading “Beat your kids, prevent a snowflake”, and “Bob can’t shit”.

Choo Choo

The section closely paralleled the chain link fence blocking in the Robertson Airport. We continued on the tracks past the airport, and then crossed the Pequabuck River on a through style plate girder bridge.
Up until around this point, the old canal used to follow more closely to that river, and started to break away as it neared Plainville ahead.
We continued south, and Cronk Road appeared on the left. We started walking that to the south, parallel with the railroad, because it became more active going into the CMC Rebar company area.

ham

There was a giant bridge with a hoist on it, and stairs up to the top. Justin and I salivated at the thought of going to the top, but then I saw cameras along the way going up it. It would have been very easy to walk over there and go right up because there were no fences otherwise.
The former New Haven and Northampton line continues direct into the facility, but Cronk Road follows somewhat close to a connecting track that went to the former New York and New England Railroad. I think that might originally have been the Hartford, Providence, and Fishkill Railroad. This was the same line I traced on one of the CT hikes down into Waterville a while back.

ham

When we got out to the bend in Cronk Road, we went straight, briefly got on the connecting tracks, and then went through the parking lots of a bank and some other stuff to get out to Main Street, Rt 372.

Downtown Plainville near where canal crossed

We followed the main street for a bit, and I spotted where a house used to probably be, with a couple of benches and stone entranceway.

achieving confusion

The town of Plainville was first settled around 1650 along with nearby Farmington, but really started to grow when the canal, followed by the railroads arrived.
Southington, just to the south of here, is pretty much contiguous with Plainville.
That area was first settled in 1668 when Samuel Woodruff moved down from Farming. At the time, the area was known as Panthorne. It was later charged to South Farmington, then abbreviated to Southington. It was officially incorporated in 1779.

Pequabuck River bridge

We passed through the downtown, and soon reached the crossing of the line we had been following. I think the canal crossed at the exact same spot, but it doesn’t follow along the railroad line either north or south of here for a while.
James and Sarah were getting really close, and I had them head toward Relic Brewing, which I wanted to try. I figured it would be a good lunch stop, but turned out not to serve food.
We headed south and crossed Broad Street, and were surrounded by chain link fences.

Jesus Saves train

The side with Relic Brewing had a hole in it, so we were able to go over and meet James and Sarah. While there, there were two guys standing in back of one of many business back doors just staring at us, wondering what was going on. It could not have been more obvious they were pinning us out and talking about us.
It looked like the brewery was closed, and so I checked my phone to see what other options there might be. I decided to talk to the guys staring at us, and they turned out to be friendly.

The tracks

I told them what we were doing, and they were rather surprised. He laughed and said “I was wondering when I saw you all come through the fence….”.
I really didn’t want to eat at some chain place. I wanted to have some full Connecticut experience while we were there, and I saw a place called Wood N Tap. The guy told me that place was good and that we’d like it, so we kind of decided that was where we would walk to.
We got back through the fence on the tracks, and started heading further south.
We crossed Town Line Road after a while and entered Southington, and then Birch Street after that.

Rail yard

Beyond, there were two railroad ties lifted up and blocking the rails from any trains going further. The line was abandoned beyond here. We walked across an old bridge over a small brook, and then skirted multiple businesses. We crossed Queen Street, Airport Road, Spring Street, and then the line got a bit more overgrown as we reached the underpass of Interstate 84, the Yankee Expressway.
We continued from here, and reached a path that went out through the shopping center to the left. Sarah got in a shopping cart along the way and Justin pushed her into the parking lot toward the Wood N Tap place.

end of service

The place was nice; I was hoping for some old style stage coach stop building or something, but the ambiance was a lot more Ruby Tuesdays or TGI Fridays. Still not bad though.

Heavy?

Everyone sat around a long table and figured out what to eat. I got some strong beer I’d never had before that was on tap. I forget what it was honestly.
Everyone pretty much knew what they wanted, but when I said I was getting the blackened chicken thing, Jen changed her mind and got that as well. The cost for this awesome meal was literally like a dollar more than their simple burger, which was what I was going to get at first. I was definitely glad I got the chicken.

Old porch type thingy

I had been feeling congested in the morning, which was odd. I felt fine the last several days, and I shrugged it off thinking it was just because I spent a lot of time on the lawn mower at work, clearing boat storage sites, and breathing in too much dust and grass. However, the condition got gradually worse. The blackened chicken with it’s not unbearable spiciness was perfect to keep it in check a little while longer.

abandoned bridge

We had a lot of fun. When we had arrived, we had the shopping cart. They had to get a table ready for all of us, and the girl asked something about if we were bringing the cart in.

Cart ham

I told her we could if she wanted us to. She laughed and said it wasn’t necessary, and I kept on with the idea that one of us could sit in the cart if there wasn’t enough seats.
I’m not sure what happened to it, because I think it was gone from the front when we came back out.
We headed around to the south side of the store lot from here. The right of way from where we turned off were completely overgrown and in terrible shape, so I wanted to find a better way to get back to it. The tracks ended at about that point near the highway underpass where we left the line.

bridge

Fortunately, we found a very good path that led down along a small pond thing and then back to the tracks. We could then turn left into the woods following the rail bed south. There was a homeless encampment that hasn’t been used in a while right in the middle, and the right of way is somewhat overgrown. We were able to push through pretty well, which took us out to Lazy Lane where the trail started back up.
We crossed the Quinnipiac River on the trail, followed by Curtis Street.

Lunchy fun

For a while, it annoyed me that this was all about the Farmington Canal heritage, and it kind of ignored the fact that the railroad was in place for so much longer.

My crazy attire for this one. Pic by Sarah

The railroad was there until in most spots 1982, over a century, and the canal was only there for twenty some years.
I was surprised when we came upon the next trail sign: it said “New Haven and Northampton Railroad, The Canal Line”. That was a much more accurate description of it. The sign was huge, like a Japanese Torii, arching over the right of way. It blew my mind that most of the crossings south of this point had those. That’s a serious expense for so many of those. They also had signs welcoming visitors to the area and saying to respect other trail users.
We crossed Chapman Street, followed by Mill Street, and then skirted High Street before reaching the middle of Southington. It was kind of funny that the next road crossing was Center Street, but it seemed that the four-way intersection was all Center Street. Kind of confusing.
The gentrified little town has lots of breweries I’d like to try, but I did want to get done in reasonable time.

Broken tracks

The businesses occupy an old mill building to the left side of the trail.
The décor on the trail was more outlandish in this section than anywhere else we saw.

Old industrial building and art

There were sort of tiki god heads along the edge with topiary bushes, stationary exercise bikes on the trail, and then all sorts of art on the walls and secured to fences to the left, on the old industrial buildings.
This was all very impressive stuff. They had a depot painted on the side of a mill building, and a train pained in such a way that a stack coming out of the wall was used as the stack on the locomotive.
As we headed south, the trail came close to Summer Street and there was an old business to the right that still had a railroad siding in place. We continued south and went by more industrial buildings, which also had some more nice murals on them. There was a quote by Anne Frank: “How lovely to think that no one need wait a moment, we can start now, start slowly changing the world! And you can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness.”
We made our way south and soon crossed the main street in Plantsville, a community within the town of Southington. This was also an industrial area dating mostly back to the 1800s and early 1900s.

Art along the trail

After an abandoned warehouse on the left, we crossed the Eightmile River, and then some weird butterfly chairs along the trail. Soon, Awater Street came in closely on the right side, with Interstate 84 not far away.

Old industry in Plantville

Based on the historic 1828 maps of the canal, this street is about where the canal came back close to the railroad again. It wasn’t directly on it at this point, but it remains much closer from here. Awater Street becomes Canal Street around the point where the trail and road goes under an on ramp to Rt 84.
We pushed ahead a bit more, and entered the little community of Milldale where there is a lovely old 1890s train station still standing, which serves as a museum now. It was nice to see an old station still in nice shape.

Milldale, 1930s

Apparently Doris Day visited this site, and her 1959 movie “It Happened to Jane” was filmed in Southington including the station.

Milldale Station now

The station is also the former site of Lock #9 on the Farmington Canal. It’s either destroyed or buried now, directly behind the station.

Historic Tom Nelligan image of Milldale

We continued south a bit more, and soon crossed over Rt 322 on a former railroad bridge. This was where we would leave the rail bed and head toward the hotel.

MIlldale Station

We squeezed through the side of the fence and made our way down the slope, along 22 over Canal Street, past Dollar General, and then we cut through the back of Blimpie and then through the Home Depot lot to reach the Comfort Suites.

I was able to bring my car back, and returned to the hotel.
John and Annika chose not to stay the rest of the hike, and the rest of us except Curt went to the indoor heated swimming pool.

Pool fun

I don’t know if this helped me or made my situation worse. I was not feeling better and the congestion was worsening. I enjoyed swimming for a time, but had to keep myself under because it seemed too cold otherwise. I was getting colder all the time for some reason.
After pool time, we got together and watched the new Star Trek Picard on James’ lap top. I really don’t watch any shows at all save for the new Star Trek stuff. I won’t allow myself to immerse in anything else because it will take away too much time from other stuff that’s important to me (like this).

A James sandwich

I was awake for the show, and they had something on the TV, but I was feeling worse all the time. I was in James’ bed asleep next to him, but I was not doing too well, coughing and sniffling. I kept feeling colder, and I couldn’t think straight. By this time, I was feeling rather certain this wasn’t just some inhalation thing. They let me have my own bed as not to spread the plague to everyone else. Sarah actually slept on some blow up thing that James had brought.
I could not get warm, even bundled up in covers, but in the morning I woke up sopping with sweat. I figured I must have had a bad fever, but I had no thermometer to tell for sure with.

Old spur in Milldale

Kirk was the first one up for breakfast. He milked the value out of everything this hotel was going to give him. He must have spent hours in the pool, because he was already in when the rest of us arrived, and he was swimming under water the entire time (which made his eyes burn like crazy for a while, from the Chlorine). He arrived at like 6 am when they started serving breakfast, and stayed down there for the entire time they were serving. He told me he had three full breakfasts and whatever else during the time there.

Most of the group didn’t show up down there until 8ish. After James had had something to eat, we spotted my car at the end point, which would be just south of Wallingford near Quinnipiac, where I had finished another trip with Jillane a while back from just west of Middletown to there.
The forecast was looking much better for this day, with the sun coming out. My plan had originally been that if the weather was not great, we would simply walk the old rail line south directly into New Haven. If it was good, we would climb Sleeping Giant and follow our first section of the Quinnipiac Trail.

The old canal

It took a while to get things together, and then spotting the car took some time. I probably should have just tried to uber or something to save time, but we spotted the car anyway.
As soon as we got back, everyone was waiting for us in the lobby to walk. We went back to the railroad bed exactly the way we had come down, and started walking south on it. There was an old industrial spur to the left that still had some rails on it most the way back to the trail.
We crossed Interstate 691, followed by Johnson Ave, both on bridges that were originally railroad bridges. The latter has an intersection with Peck Lane next to the trail. What idiot names a road Peck Lane to intersection with Johnson Ave?

The rail trail

For almost this entire day, the canal was very close to the railroad. It was not like some of the canals, where the railroad simply built on the towpath. The canal had twists and turns that could not be navigated by a train, and so some sections were very much straightened. The first bit that might have been the canal was just after we crossed Tenmile River, where a brook moved off to the east a bit through an enormous greenhouse facility.

The parallel old canal

We passed another industrial spur to the left where tracks were still in place, as well as a good historic marker on the history of the canal and the railroad.
We crossed Schoolhouse Road, and continued on the grade into a wooded area.
The canal was often visible. I wasn’t sure at first, but now I am that the small stream that flowed closely parallel with the railroad is in fact the former canal. The stream just follows the old canal course to this day. When the canal was built, streams like this that were small enough would have been directed into the canal to keep it filled.

Canal parallel with the rail bed

We crossed Sandbank Road, and the canal weaved far off to the left from the rail bed. I could see quite obviously that this was not the natural run of the stream. The turns were too gentle, the slopes on either side too high for it to have been eroded that way naturally.
The canal returned to the edge of the railroad again at a parking area just before reaching Jarvis Street. A foot bridge spanned the canal to the parking lot.

Former Meriden, Waterbury, and Connecticut River Railroad bridge site

The sign over Jarvis Road read Farmington Canal Heritage Trail, while ones to the north where the canal was not right on it, had the railroad info. I’m not sure people pick up on that.
We continued south, and soon reached the former bridge overpass for the Meriden, Waterbury, and Connecticut River Railroad. Only the abutments remain today, but they had a good then and now image on their sign.

Watching ducks fall through ice

The line stretched east to the Connecticut River, and west it made direct connection to the bridge over the Hudson at Poughkeepsie. The curves on it would not have made it the most convenient route, which is probably why it is gone today, and some of it has Interstate 84 built over it closer to Waterbury.
The canal continued closely on the left as we walked south. Some of it was very full of water, which now served like a little pond with residences on the other side. We paused to watch a group of Mallards clumsily try to walk on ice, only to keep falling through.

Historic image of the street railway crossing

We continued south, and then came to another bridge pier. This one was the Meriden Street Railway, a trolley line that served the area from 1905 until 1934. The abutments were also remaining on either side of the former bridge.

The bridge site today

We soon reached Rt 70 in Cheshire. The town of Cheshire was first settled in 1694, and at the time was part of Wallingford. It seceded from there and organized as a town in 1780, and is named for Cheshire, England. There was a weird “no trespassing sign on the trail for the fiber optic line that follows it, which I always think is funny on the public trails.

A dock on the old canal

We headed across the road, and there were old industrial buildings on the left. The trail soon had to turn away from the railroad bed as it entered an industrial site ahead.

Elevated walkway in Cheshire

The trail turned and became an elevated, concrete based walkway over the wetlands which was actually quite cool.
The trail returned to the rail bed at a parking area adjacent to Cornwall Ave.
This area was known as Lockport or Twin Locks, because Farmington Canal Locks 10 and 11 were both here.
I read a historic marker and realized that the lock should actually be quite close. I went over to where the canal was, and was shocked to find the remnants of Lock 11.

Remains of Lock #11

This lock was much smaller than the other locks I’m used to seeing on the other canals. The lock was 75 feet long and only 12 feet wide. 65 foot long packet boats would pass through these locks. It was abandoned about the time all of the other canals were putting in upgrades. It’s a wonder any of the lock walls were still recognizable at all.

The rail bed and Farmington Canal

Lock 10 was a little farther north and I couldn’t see anything of it from where we were. There might be something left over near Spring Street, but at the time I was not sure which lock I was looking at here.
Below this site, the Willow Brook I believe flows much in the old canal prism.
We continued into more wooded area, and the canal remained pretty close to the railroad. We crossed Higgin Road, and then Brookvale Road. There is an entrance to Lock 12 Park there, but we remained on the rail bed because it goes right by the lock anyway.

Lock #12

Lock #12 is in great shape, along with the lock house still standing. Lock doors were made up and placed in the lock to show how it would have worked. There would have been wood lining on the inside of these lock walls, but that aspect of it was not emulated. 12 is considered to be the only “restored” lock on the entire canal, although really none of them are exactly restored.
The first six locks are rather close together from what I can see, close to the Massachusetts border, and on private land. They may be gone. 7 was a guard lock after a wide area below Farmington. 8 was probably obliterated through highway construction.
We checked out the lock remnants closely, and even the lock doors can be turned open or closed with giant Armstrong gate arms to demonstrate how it worked. I noted that galvanized steel was used for the lock hardware, but somewhat closely emulated what would have originally been there.

Lock #12 and Lock House

We continued south from here, and the canal passed beneath the railroad to the west side, just below the lock.
There were some really good interpretive signs on the trail ahead, with copies of notes for what it cost to travel the canal. There was an excellent timeline for the canal from planning, start of operation, to demise. The section was much more secluded, with only a couple of road crossings, but still a lot of people out using the trail.

Lock #13

I was surprised when we came across Lock #13, certainly in recognizable shape. There was even a sign showing how a lock worked in front of it, but nothing to denoting this specifically as Lock 13. I found that by looking at the historic maps of the canal.

Likely former canal spillway

Ahead, there was a spot where a side trail followed the canal towpath to the right, and the railroad bed kept to the left. We walked the canal towpath for that short bit.
After we came back out to the railroad bed, we came to a little bridge, where it looks like an original canal weir is in place to the right. These were designed so that during flood stages, water would drain off of the canal rather than it overflow and blow out elsewhere along the route. It was more of a controlled drain.

An old bridge site

The canal was mostly watered by the little local streams for this stretch, and we passed some abutments along it to old bridge sites. There was also a white blazed trail that went down into the canal after it got dry, then turned up to follow the other side. I think this is the connector trail to the Brooksvale Park.
We met a guy on the trail a little further back that was curious about where we were going and for how long. He said “Well, you’re going to miss Brooksvale Park then!”. He went on to say he walks there almost every day and it’s very nice.

Brooksvale Park connector through the canal

This park, as I understand, also connects another way with the Quinnipiac Trail, which is what we would be doing for the latter portion of this day as well. I might have to plan for some interesting alternate trips on it.
We continued south, crossed Brooksvale Ave and River Road, then Shepard Ave.
Just after this, I was surprised again to see Lock #14 on the right. It was badly eroded away and almost unrecognizable, but was there. Further, the lock house was still standing on the opposite side of the rail bed. The lock house was now being used as a police station.

Lock House and Lock #14

There were a couple of interesting points I noted about the locks on this canal. For one, there appeared to be protruding rocks that might have served as sort of gate pockets, but I can’t quite figure out for sure what it was. I guessed this because I couldn’t quite see any gate pockets on these locks, whole lock 12 on the other hand had very obvious recesses for the gates. Maybe they just collapsed.

Lock #14

Just a bit ahead, we reached our turn off for lunch stop, Sergio’s Pizza.
I was thinking I’d get a slice or something and that would be it (I was hungry, but wasn’t feeling too well and could go without). When we went in, it was like full restaurant sit down. I immediately got worried.
If we didn’t get moving by soon after 3 pm, we would not have enough time to traverse Sleeping Giant State Park. We could not take an entire hour or more for a lunch break and pull it off. After already spotting a car and using all of that time in the morning, I didn’t want to miss out on that.

Approximate site of Lock #15 and view of Sleeping Giant

We decided to just order a couple of pizzas, and we were able to get those out quickly, which worked well. We could then be on our way faster.
We had pizza with mushrooms, pepperoni, and plain, and we put it all away pretty quickly. We then headed out the door and back in the back onto the trail again.
I noted some old stone abutments that would have gone over the canal back in the woods first thing.
In this area, I think at a spot that gets wider and more level, is the former site of Lock #15. It’s on the maps, but I didn’t notice any lock stonework.

Old stone work, probably bridge site

The rail bed and canal weaved out away from the road and businesses for a bit, and then a side trail went down into the canal, parallel with the rail bed. Most of us followed that.
There was a bridge over a small brook, and a second bridge in where the canal was over the same, which seemed rather redundant until I noted an old stone arch, almost completely washed away, to the right. I figure this was all that was left of a culvert that carried the canal over the brook. Quite an interesting thing.

The old canal route

Sleeping Giant, also known as Mt. Carmel, was coming in to view to the left of the trail. It is said to look like the profile of a sleeping giant.
We crossed Todd Lane and then passed through what might have at one time been a bridge over the railroad and/or the canal. It was all cut stone on either side. We then made our way in toward the settlement of Mt. Carmel at West Woods Road, just after passing tightly between two buildings.
The blue blazes of the Quinnipiac Trail went across Rt 10 next to Woods Road.

Likely remnant of old canal culvert over a brook

The mountain, Sleeping Giant, also known as Mt. Carmel, looked incredibly imposing at this point, and we had to go right up it. Jen was not feeling able to do it, and so she decided to Uber back at this point, while the rest of us crossed Rt 10 and followed the blue blazes.

The trail in Mt. Carmel passing between houses

The Sleeping Giant, named obviously for its anthropomorphic look of a slumbering human, is an igneous extrusive basalt formation similar to the nearby Metacomet Ridge we have hiked to a great extent. The first access trails to the property were in 1888 when Blue Hills Park was opened by John H. Dickerman. Permanent conservation of the site did not happen until 1924 when trap rock companies began blasting away sections of the the Giant. The state park was formed, about 1933, and the site was used for Works Progress Administration projects through the Great Depression.

Mill River and Sleeping Giant

The Quinnipiac Trail, which traversed the entire long length of the state park, is actually the oldest trail in the entire Connecticut Blue Blazed Trail System.

Sleeping Giant

We would be on that trail for 5.2 miles, and then have to walk a bit of road back to the park and ride just below Wallingford.
I didn’t even realize how hard this section would be. The trail crossed Rt 10, then went up the highway a bit, and turned right down hill into a wide open meadow. There was an old stone wall that I think was part of an old mill raceway.
The trail then came out to Mt. Carmel Ave, which was right down from the traffic light we had just crossed at. The trail turned left on it to cross the Mill River, and then left back into woods along its edge.
Another trail came in from the right. There was a mess of trails going everywhere through this park, and the Quinnipiac sort of makes up the spine. Still, it wasn’t nearly the easiest route.
Just ahead, the trail went up a very steep slope that required hand hold climbing.

Real steep

This wasn’t even the Sleeping Giant itself. A red trail broke off to the right, and I now realize that would have been a shortcut. Regardless, I would have gone up it anyway. There was a nice view near the top of it.
Coming down the other side was probably the hardest single downhill we had to do the entire trip. We had to hold on to tree roots as we slowly brought ourselves down over the rocks.
From there, the trail crossed another trail, then ascended the Sleeping Giant very very steeply.
There was simply no doing this section without hand holds. I made sure to have no drink out or anything. It even started slightly snowing as we were going up, but stopped almost immediately.
About half way up, the main blue trail split in two. One read “ALT” on it. I suppose it was an easier way up or was intended to be. The main route would not be possible in freezing conditions. There were a few place with some ice, but overall it remained pretty clear. It was sometimes hard to get a foot hold, but most of the hand holds were pretty solid.

Steep

The view at almost the top was the best. Unobscured, we could see the tops of the buildings in New Haven to the south a bit. We could see a bit of the Long Island Sound and across to Long Island, but it was a bit hazy to have the best view. The sun from earlier had given way to some cloud cover unfortunately.
From the top, there were some rock outcrops and views to the south. There was a large collection of buildings that I thought might look like Kirkbrides, but probably not. This was all part of Quinnipiac University.
I could see a carriage road weaving around below the cliffs.
Surprisingly, the trail went right back down again into a saddle, I guess the neck of the main from afar. At the bottom of the steep slope I crossed another trail, followed by the unblazed Tower Path, which is a comfortable crushed stone trail.
Justin was the only one keeping up with me at this point. He was behind with everyone else at first, but then caught up at the top of the slope.

View on Sleeping Giant

We made our way up the next slope, across Tower Path again, and then to the Sleeping Giant Stone Tower at 736 ft above sea level.

View on Sleeping GIant

The tower was completed in 1936 as a WPA project at the highest point on the mountain. It’s amazing they leave something like this so completely open.

Sleeping Giant Tower

The tower was larger and much more interesting in its Romanesque design than I had anticipated. It was three stories, the bottom of which had a picnic table and nice fireplace.

Sleeping Giant view

Rooms were on the sides of it, and up the middle there were not stairs, but rather sections of two ramps between each story to make the climb. This must be one of the first ADA accessible sites ever created.
The only date I could find contrary to the 1936 construction is a bit of concrete with 1937 etched in. Apparenlty all of this work was in fact done way back then.
There were some nice corridors on the way up, and some bars over windows in fashions like spider webs or maybe some sort of font. At the very top, we had a view out to Long Island Sound and pretty much 360 degree views. The view wasn’t greater than right at the top of the ascent, but it was still pretty nice.

Sleeping Giant Tower

Justin climbed up to the top of the northwest turret of the castle tower and we waited for the others to show up.
I was certain it would be dark by the time we got out of this park, but I just wanted to get done with the tough stuff first.
Everyone came up into the tower to have a look around, and then I headed out to try to start on my way down the trail. Everyone followed, and actually stayed caught up with me for a bit. It was a steep downhill soon after the tower, with a few more south and east facing views.

Atop the giant

We crossed a trail at the bottom of a descent, then I hurriedly climbed back up the other side. The climbs were not as hard as before, but still slowed everyone down a bit.
I powered ahead and crossed at least six more trails on the way. It could be hard at times because there would be blue combined with another color, and the just plain blue trail would be easy to lose.
There were a couple more views. At one of them, sort of east facing, I paused and talked to a guy who was enjoying it. I told him I had to get out before dark, but mistakenly told him Rt 10 when I was going to 15, and he said “You’ll be alright”. Well, I was alright, but it was quite dark.
I had saved a copy of the trail map to my phone and watched it and the mileage charts to see how I was doing. After another view to the east, with all of the buildings now well lit up, I kind of knew where I was and what to expect.

Tower ramps

The descents became much more gradual. There was one switchback that was kind of tight, but I managed it without a problem. Beyond there, it was quite relaxing walking across and intersecting with the the other trails trails.
Soon, I came out to Chestnut Lane. There was one car parked there when I arrived with an open hatch. The guy looked shocked to see a man in a red blazer come walking out of the woods. I asked him how the trail conditions were on the section I was heading to across the road. He said he had never been over there. I thanked him and walked into the woods in the dark.
The trail section was very easy. It went down very slightly and crossed a foot bridge over a little brook. It then climbed very slightly along a knoll, turned as a bit of a side hill path, and I paused to just look around. There was plenty of ambient light making this a particularly nice sections.
Just then, I talked on the phone with James, who had come out to Chestnut Lane, and everyone decided they wanted to walk the road down to the right. Despite it being over a mile more going south only to go west and north again, they went that way.

Along Quinnipiac Trail

I headed further down as the trail became a pleasant woods road. There was a lovely spot where I was looking off at the lights of buildings in the distance.

View on Quinnipiac Trail

I was actually glad to be doing this section at this time. I had a headache and was coughing a bit, but still doing pretty well by now, much improved over the night before.
The trail came down at a random spot on the Hartford Turnpike in a lightly residential area. Officially, the trail ends at this point now, but unofficially it used to continue onward and into Quinnipiac River State Park.
I walked north on the Hartford Turnpike, and there were blazes barely visible on the utility poles going to the right down Toelles Road. I didn’t see any for any turns and didn’t know what it was supposed to do yet, but it used to turn right along the Quinnipiac River to the state park. The trail is still open to the south of there, but because of a flood plain issue, it’s closed in the interim section. I still want to try to hike it one of these days. Maybe the next trip or something.

Current end of Quinnipiac Trail

I continued walking across the bridge over Quinnipiac River on Toelles Road heading east. The bridge seemed to have a weird deck on it as if they expected people to walk on it.
I didn’t’ see any more trail blazes, though I kept looking, because at the time I didn’t know that it used to continue further south along the west side of the river.
It was a long walk out Toelles Road. James and the others actually reached the road before I got to the park and ride on the other side, after some industrial sites.

The faded old blazes

I cut across the railroad tracks and to the left to reach my van and complete the hike. I hurried out of the lot and down Toelles Road where I found the group seated along one of the north side guard rails just after the bridge over the Quinnipiac River.
We headed back to the hotel from there and packed our things all up to go in respective vehicles.
Everyone was pretty tired and quite much of the way, but thankfully I was able to stay awake without much problem the entire drive back.

Along Toelles Road

When I got home, I didn’t even go to bed right away. I felt fully capable of getting to work in the morning without a problem, because I still figured it would be just a bit of a respiratory infection from work.
This turned out to be the worst ailment I have had since the fire in 2010 in terms of my absense from work. I ended up being out the entire following week. I tried going in, but the guys didn’t want me getting them sick.
Only on Friday did it really start to improve. I still felt bad for the hike on Saturday the next week, but after that there was much improvement. Maybe working through it is the answer...