Posted By auntie on October 24, 2014

9 miles; ledyard, ct

the connecticut forest and park association maintains 825 miles of trails in 96 towns in connecticut. i can now proudly say i’ve knocked off two of those trails for [drumroll please] about 25-3/4 miles! yay me. although, to be fair, i’ve also hiked some blue-blazed trails in other parts of the state, so, sure, make it about 35 miles. whoa. only 790 to go to complete the whole trail system.

i had hiked the northern half of the pequot trail in august of 2012 from route 2 in ledyard to route 165 in preston. i thought i vaguely remembered that hike was around 6 miles end-to-end. the cfpa website says the entire pequot trail is only 7.9 miles long total, so i thought i’d be a completist and go finish the rest of the trail and then maybe check out another small preserve i’d stumbled across earlier in the week. and since it was so short, i figured i could do it as an out-and-back.

well first of all, the earlier hike was 4.6 miles, not 6. so much for my memory. and second of all, the cfpa is wrong, the entire pequot trail is over 9 miles long. you can do the math, i’m sure. i ended up hiking 9 miles total round trip.

hallville pond

whinging aside, this was a really interesting hike. i parked right on the side of route 2 where lincoln park road dead-ends, and the first mile or so followed this road.

the trail through milton green park

at the end of this road, the trail enters milton green park, and quickly turns onto a very nicely laid-out and maintained trail that was an eagle scout project. then it crosses rose hill road and enters the rose hill wildlife management area, where it stays for the next couple of miles. by the way, rose hill is not just a romantic name, it’s an actual hill. which i climbed. twice.

fresh blazing

the majority of this section of the pequot trail is beautifully blazed, although there are a couple of spots where it gets a little dicey. the rose hill management area is gorgeous. until you enter the management area, you can continually hear the roar of traffic on route 2. once you turn into the woods, it’s peaceful and beautiful.

it’s smaller in person

the trail comes out of the wildlife management area onto thomas road, and then there’s another longish stretch of road-walking. this plaque and boulder is at the end of coachman pike. hm. smaller than i thought it would be in person. just before you come to the mashentucket pequot burial ground, the trail turns back into the woods. here you are cautioned several times to stay on the blazed trail, as this is private property.

trail heads down a driveway

upon emerging from the woods again, the trail enters, uh, somebody’s back yard. really. seriously. it continues down their driveway and onto coachman pike, where it takes a left and ends up at shewille road. it wasn’t bad enough that i had to walk through somebody’s yard, but because it was an out-and-back, i had to walk back into their yard to get back. weird.

fungus shot

but i did get to go back through the rose hill wildlife management area, too, so it was overall a win.

you can find pequot trail part 1 in the hikefinder. i will add this section in the near future and update this post when i do.

UPDATE: did the map and added this hike to the hikefinder. turns out, a lot of what i thought was the rose hill management area, wasn’t. not sure whose land it was, whether it is private property or not. if you do this hike, stay on the blazed trails as much as possible.

Categories: CFPA Trails, Connecticut, Walks and Hikes
Tags: 7–10 miles, CT, Ledyard CT