Estimated distance: 4.88 miles (although my GPS says 5.22, we had started driving down the road before I turned it off)
Weather: 62°F, overcast then some rain
Resources: CT NET: Section 21 (Metacomet Trail), MA NET: Section 01 (Metacomet-Monadnock Trail)
Highlights of the trip: bog
Progress toward 2016 hiking goals: 31/52 hikes; 119.67/250 miles; 28.5/25 miles on Tunxis Trail
One of my old roommates, who shared a CIGNA house with me in Bloomfield before I got married, contacted me to see if I wanted to go on a hike. We ended up choosing to hike a part of the New England Trail (Metacomet and Monadnock) that I hadn't done before. We left a car on Route 57 near the Southwick/Agawam line (huge parking area across from Agawam Bowmen's Club) and took the other down to Phelps Road in Suffield to start our hike.
I was glad I had looked at the information on the New England Trail website before we left so that I knew we would be following the blue trail in CT and the white trail in MA. When we started our hike there were two trails, and at least I knew to take the blue one.
We climbed up and eventually came to a look out. A beautiful view except for the huge power lines. The picture below is my attempt to get a view with minimal power line intrusion, but I probably should have just taken one power lines and all so you could see what it really looked like.
We knew when we started the hike it was supposed to rain later in the day, but it started raining about half-way through our hike. Much earlier than we had anticipated. Thank goodness it wasn't a heavy rain (yet) and for the most part we were under the trees.
As we came out to Rising Corner Road in Southwick, we felt like we were walking through someone's yard. There is a kiosk and parking for hikers in the field across the street. Walking in between two other properties, we soon came to the bog I had read about. There was an old wheelbarrow full of scraps of metal and, as we stopped to put on more bug repellent, I tripped over a metal rod that was sticking out of the ground and then managed to stab my leg with it. Thankfully, it was nothing more than a surface scratch, but be careful there!
A boardwalk of sorts has been built across the bog. It is not fancy, and seems to be built layer upon layer. It needs to be high in order to make it passable. There is no way you could cross the bog without it, so thank you to the folks that built it.
Once across the bog, we were back under the cover of the trees. Thankfully, it hadn't rained heavily. We were wet, but not soaked. We got to the car and headed back to the other car at Phelps Road. It started raining a little more. We went our separate ways and within a mile, the sky opened up. It was crazy. I had the wipers on full speed and I just started laughing. We got lucky on this one!
