Estimated distance: 6.89 miles (2.87 of which was on the Tunxis Yellow-dot and Black-dot trails)
Weather: 80°F, partly cloudy, temperature started dropping as wind picked up
Resources: Sessions Woods WMA Trail Map, CFPA Tunxis Hiking Map - Burlington re-route
Highlights of the trip: Tunxis black dot trail, wildflowers, beaver marsh
Progress toward 2016 hiking goals: 32/52 hikes; 126.56/250 miles; 31.37/25 miles on Tunxis Trail
An excellent hike today at Sessions Woods Wildlife Management Area! I hadn't been here in awhile and I forgot all that it had to offer.
My hiking partner and I were joined by her husband, who likes to geocache. There were quite a few caches to find in the area and he found the first ones when we took the short Forest Meadow Trail.
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| Sessions Woods Trail Map |
Then we followed the Beaver Pond Trail and he found another cache at the junction with the Crosscut Trail. That one took a little hunting, but he eventually found it. He was going to continue on the Crosscut Trail while we kept to the Beaver Pond Trail, but his trail became impassable before too long and he caught up to us.
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| Sheep laurel (Lambkill) |
We decided to back-track and pick up the Tunxis Yellow-dot trail, which would take us around the far side of the beaver pond. This was a fantastic decision. This trail is quite different from the wide cindered trails you find in Sessions Woods. Unlike the fairly heavily traveled Sessions Woods trails (a lot of joggers and dog walkers), we had the Tunxis Trails to ourselves. Another cache was found on the far side of the pond and we continued to loop around and picked up the Tunxis Black-dot trail.
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| Pink corydalis (aka harlequin corydalis, rock harlequin, pale corydalis) |
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| Looking back up the trail from which we came. |
We re-entered Sessions Woods at the camping area and took the Beaver Pond Trail back in a clockwise direction toward the beaver pond. My friend's husband left us to continue on while he searched for a couple of caches. We told him we would continue and maybe stop at the waterfall and fire tower before heading toward the beaver pond. It had already been a decent hike, so when we saw the warning about the trail to the waterfall being in disrepair, we decided to skip it. As we came to the trail for the fire tower, we skipped that, too. So, we went straight to the beaver pond, noticing two turtles on the path along the way. They had probably left the marsh to come up and lay their eggs.
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| There were both pink and yellow water lilies, though my photos show them as white. |
The beaver pond is my favorite part of Sessions Woods. We walked across the boardwalk to the viewing area and then found a place on a rock to sit, relax, and look at the pond. There were a lot of high bush blueberries and huckleberries. Not ripe yet, though. The water was much higher than I remember it being the last time I was here. Some extra planks had been out down to allow access to the boardwalk as the start of the boardwalk is under water.
We thought we were sitting in a place that would make it easy for my friend's husband to find us, but I guess not. It had become really windy and after about 45 minutes, we decided we had better get up and head back to the car. We ran into him on the trail headed back out. He had gone to the car looking for us after going to the waterfall and fire tower and passing the pond and not seeing us.
Almost 7 miles of hiking today, and probably closer to 9 miles for my friend's husband. (Sorry.) We started our hike around 11 a.m. and finished around 3:30. As a bonus at the end of the hike, we stopped at Dunkin' Donuts and got drinks for the ride home. An excellent day of hiking. I'd highly recommend taking the Tunxis Trail around the outside of Sessions Woods.
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