Posted By auntie on July 23, 2014

6.1 miles, chester, ct

the hubs and i took a mini camping vacation at hammonasset state park in madison, ct, and while we were there, i did a local hike. the connecticut forest and park association maintains over 800 miles of blue-blazed hiking trails, and the cockaponset trail makes up 7 of those miles. i did the southern half of this trail, using two extensive side trails to make it a nice figure-8 loop.

i’m afraid i mostly took pictures of fungus. it’s really getting to be mushroom time in the woods, and i saw but didn’t collect 2 choice edibles on this hike.

black trumpet

i saw this black trumpet mushroom in the first 1/10th of a mile. it was all alone, though, so i left it, as one black trumpet does not a wild mushroom risotto make. and not far from this, i saw a sweet-tooth, or hedgehog mushroom. this is supposed to be a choice edible, but firstly, i had no cool place to keep it, and secondly, i’ve never collected one or tried one, and i was admittedly a little chicken, although none of the commonly found toothed mushrooms are poisonous that i know of.

mystery fungus

i’ve seen lots of this fungus lately, and lots on this trail. i think it’s a false coral mushroom, and the reports are that it is edible, but “rubbery and unpalatable.” my thanks to whoever discovered that so i didn’t have to.

some kind of bolete

now this baby is, i’m pretty sure, some sort of bolete. it was the size of a teacup saucer, and definitely a polypore mushroom. but one thing that made me doubt that it was a king bolete is that a king usually has a very thick, club-shaped stem, and as you can see from the photo, this one doesn’t. there are a lot of bolete varieties, and while they aren’t all delicious as the king, they’re edible on a sliding scale from yummy to yuck. i am not especially confident in my ability to i.d. boletes, though, so unless it was an obvious king, i wouldn’t collect it.

old man of the woods

this beautiful little guy is old man of the woods. not poisonous, not particularly edible. just kind of cool-looking.

pattaconk reservoir

and in case you were wondering if i ever looked up from the ground for six miles, why, yes, i did. this is the pattaconk reservoir. i hiked the cockaponset trail as far as the northern tip of this reservoir, and then took the alternate pattaconk trail back to the beach area. this is a very nice trail that hugs the shore of the reservoir. it was cool and breezy; a welcome relief from the heat in the woods. then after missing the intersection twice, i took another unnamed blue/red-blazed alternate trail back to my car. while this hike was not especially strenuous, it was a workout for me compared with the usual terrain i hike in southeastern connecticut and southern rhode island, which is pretty durned flat.

i have added this hike to the hikefinder.

Categories: CFPA Trails, Connecticut, Walks and Hikes
Tags: 5–7 miles, Chester CT, CT