Number in group: 3
Estimated distance round-trip: 3 miles
Weather: Sunny, 84°F
Resources: Simsbury Walkbook, West Mountain Trails Map
Highlights of the trip: Views
On Sunday, I went with a friend and her husband to hike the Western Mountain trails in West Simsbury. He geocached as we hiked along. Using the map below, you can get an idea of our route. We started at the Master's School parking lot and hiked north along the red trail until we came to the bridge where the Hedgehog Trail joins the Cathles Trail. Here we took the white trail west to the blue trail to return to the car.
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| From Simsbury Land Trust website. |
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| Overlook on Hedgehog Trail from April 2009. |
The trail to the overlook wasn't too bad, probably because I had someone to talk to to keep my mind off of the climb. Plus, we stopped a few times for the geocacher to look around.
After the view, we headed, down, down, down, to the bridge over the stream where the Cathles Trail starts. Instead of turning around and going back up, up, up, we used the white trail as a cut-off over to the blue trail and took that back.
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| Bridge where Hedgehog and Cathles Trails meet. |
The blue trail saved us from the steep ascent we would have had to make if we retraced our steps. The trail was pretty rocky, though. We did get a great view of the talus slope on the back side of the ridge.
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| Along the blue trail. |
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| Talus slope. |
The blue trail also takes you alongside the Simsbury Resevoir. We could see it a little through the trees, but we didn't venture down to it. The reservoir didn't look as clear as I was expecting. It looked like it might have a bunch of lily pads or other plants, but like I said, we didn't go down to check it out.
This is really a nice hike. It would be great to do in the fall so I may get my homeschool hiking group out there to enjoy it.
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