Saturday, April 9, 2016

Hike #18: Broad Hill Road Area of McLean Game Refuge - Granby, CT

Date Hiked:  Saturday, April 9, 2016
Estimated distance round-trip: 5.79 miles
Weather: 40°F, partly cloudy
Resources: CT Waterfalls, New England Waterfalls, McLean Game Refuge Trail Map
Highlights of the trip: Waterfalls, remains of old homesteads
Progress toward 2016 hiking goals:  18/52 hikes; 63.01/250 miles; 8/25 miles on Tunxis Trail


Fantastic hike!  Today I decided to explore the Broad Hill Road area of McLean Game Refuge, including sections of Weed Hill and Old Beech Road.  Whenever I hike in the Refuge, I give a little word of thanks to Senator McLean.  And today I found that I also need to thank the Messenger, Reynold, Caruso, Collamore, and Carpenter families, who have given land to expand the Refuge.  What a tremendous gift you have all given!




I parked on Broad Hill Road in the small parking area (3 cars) near the gate.  The road beyond the gate is not paved and there is a sign indicating that it is not maintained in winter.  I have not been here when the gate is open, so I don't know if it ever is.

The kiosk is a Little Free Library.
I climbed up past the Granby Land Trust's Diamond Ledges and Petersen Preserves on the right, and trails into Holcomb Farm's Western trails on the left.  At around 0.7 miles (total guess), Weed Hill Road goes off to the left on a bridge over Beach Brook.  An unmarked trail leads down to Carpenter Falls.  (From the bridge you can see a large plaque on one of the rocks in the stream with the name Carpenter Falls on it).  The falls were absolutely spectacular!  How did I not know about them?

Carpenter Falls

Carpenter Falls
After viewing the falls, I continued on Weed Hill Road.  This road is lined with old stone walls and wolf trees.  There are also a couple of old cellar holes that I find just fascinating.  Why did they get abandoned?


Circular foundation near a regular rectangular one.  An old silo?

Old well.

Maybe the stone to the right of my hiking poles used to cover the well.

An area of daffodils in the woods.
I eventually came to the "end" of the road.  Not really.  I am guessing it is the start of the Weed Hill trail in McLean Game Refuge.  When Steve Wood of CTMQ posted about it (page alomost to the bottom), there were a couple of old couches out here around the fire pit.  The couches are gone (if I have the location correct), but there are a few old springs adorning a tree.

The end of Weed Hill Road for me, but the start of Weed Hill Trail in McLean Game Refuge.

Old couch springs?
 I turned around and headed back down the hill to the intersection with Broad Hill Road.

Heading back to Broad Hill Road.
Turning left and continuing on Broad Hill, I soon came to an area with a couple of cabins on the left and a man-made pond on the right.  This is marked on the McLean map as private property, so I just kept to the road.  I could see a great blue heron standing in the pond and was able to get a reasonable picture from my vantage point.

Great Blue Heron.
Where Broad Hill Road takes a sharp right to head over toward Route 219, Old Beech Road (marked as abandoned on the map), continues straight.  A new trail, called Pine Cone Trail, has been created that follows this old road.  Pine Cone Trail is blazed black.  It is listed with the other trails on the McLean Game Refuge map, but it is not actually indicated on the map. 

The start of Pine Cone Trail.
As I walked along Pine Cone Trail, I could hear water from Beach Brook rushing to my left (funny how it is Old "Beech" Road, but "Beach" Brook).  I eventually came to another sign for Pine Cone Trail, but it seemed a little misplaced.   The sign is to the right of the trail and points left, as if you were to continue on going straight.  However, the black blazes go into the woods and seem to end rather abruptly (two horizontal blazes indicates the end of trail, so I did not look any further).  If you look at the McLean map you will see the trail takes a sharp right here and should continue on to the top of Pine Cone Mountain. 

The left arrow makes no sense to me.
 I chose to keep going straight, which took me out of the Game Refuge and into Enders State Forest.

View of trail that continues straight into Enders.
I continued up this trail for a little bit and then decided to call it quits.  I would like to try it again another day.  It looks like the trail will take you pretty close to a stream that flows into the falls.

Where I called it quits and turned around.
On the way back down the Pine Cone Trail, I just had to investigate the sound of rushing water from Beach Brook.  I am glad I did.  Another fantastic waterfall!

Mystery waterfall - I'll call it Old Beech Waterfall.

Another view of Old Beech Waterfall.
There may be more waterfalls downstream, but I decided to call it a day and head back to the car.  This was an absolutely fantastic hike!  I am just amazed at how much land there is to explore here.  Thanks to all those who made it available to the public.



8 comments:

  1. Thanks for your post! After reading this, I checked Runkeeper, and it shows the trail going all the way to Enders Falls. We decided to give it a try, parked one car on Broad Hill, and drove to Enders. I wanted to make this a three mile hike instead of an out and back six. I've seen teenagers cross that brook easily, but with the recent rains we couldn't find a way to cross and stay relatively dry. So we explored the falls, drove back to Broad Hill and hiked to Carpenter Falls. All the waterfalls have been spectacular!

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    1. Isn't it beautiful out there?

      If you click on David Reik's name in the comment above, it will take you to his blog and you will see he has hiked extensively out there. In fact, I think it is possible he is the one that has made many of the tracks you can see on Runkeeper. Does Runkeeper access OpenStreetMap? If you look at the area with OpenStreetMap, you can see many of David's tracks and other notes.

      Better safe than sorry at Enders. My son is a fireman and was out there on a rescue last week. The water is COLD!

      I thought I had posted about my visit to Bash Bish Falls, but I guess I haven't. A bit more of a drive, but you could make a nice day of it. Hopefully, I'll get to that post in the next day or two.

      Thanks for commenting!

      Sarah

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    2. This is a small world moment! Thank you for the tip to click on David's name. I met him on an AMC hike in New Hartford. I learned then that Runkeeper isn't completely accurate - the technology he uses is more advanced. I was excited to go home and explore his maps, but then I couldn't remember his name. Now it's going to take every ounce of discipline I have to accomplish what I'm supposed to today and not spend the day studying his maps! I can't wait to explore more.

      As to your question about Runkeeper, I've wondered about that. Especially because Runkeeper maps will have notes, such as "blow-down" (on the map for the above hike it even has "plastic bag" noted). I've even googled it before to no avail. Where do those routes and notations come from? A new google search using both Open Street Map and Runkeeper brings this result: https://www.mapbox.com/blog/updating-map-runkeeper/

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    3. That is really interesting about Runkeeper and OpenStreetMap. I know what you mean about not spending hours studying maps! Sometimes I have also been known to consult historical quadrangle maps to see if there were old roads or houses that might have foundations left. It is all so interesting.

      Did you like the AMC hike? I have not tried one yet as I am afraid of being the slowest one in the group. I don't mind (usually) hiking by myself, but I am pretty sure a lot of those group hikes won't leave anyone behind, so I would feel guilty if I was slowing everyone down.

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    4. I liked the AMC hike. The leader was amazing. She actually went in with a saw a few days before the hike and cleared some overgrown areas. I'm sure you would have been fine. This was a slow group. I think it varies by leader. The leader's contact info is included so you could check with them. I hope to do more with them, but it just hasn't worked with my schedule.

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    5. Thanks. I'll have to keep the AMC hikes in mind.

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