2017 Hike #20: Holcomb Farm to Carpenter Falls - West Granby, CT

Date Hiked: Thursday, June 1, 2017
Estimated distance:  4.52 miles
Weather: 75°F, partly cloudy
Resources: Holcomb Farm, Holcomb Farm Trail Map, McLean Game Refuge Trail Map
Highlights of the trip:  waterfall, snake, millipede
Progress toward 2017 Outdoor Goals:  20/52 hikes; 69.83/250 miles hiked

I should have waited a day to take this hike.  I ended up picking a warm, rather humid day and if I had waited one more day it would have dried out and there would have been a bit of a breeze.  Oh, well.  It was still a good hike.

I parked at Holcomb Farm in West Granby, went across the CSA fields and over the West Branch of Salmon Brook.  I took the Holcomb Trails to the orange, Northwest Passage Trail which comes out on Broad Hill Road.  From there, I took the dirt road to Carpenter Falls.  On the way back down, I zig-zagged my way down the Holcomb Farm Trails.

Bridge over West Branch of Salmon Brook.

Yellow trail leading to stairs.

Before I got to the stairs, I happened to see a couple of folding chairs in the woods.  I decided to walk over and take a look and see if there was some reason there were chairs sitting out here.  I have seen some crazy stuff in the woods, so you never know.  The craziest was a gorilla suit dressed up with blaze orange hunting vest and hat that my kids thought might be a dead body.  (What the heck?  I saw reference to it later in a geocaching post).  Nothing that strange this time, just chairs.  But, then I turned around...

Ugh.  I sure hope I wasn't caught on camera!  I may find out, because when I was hiking with my friend a few days later she said her son was one of the kids charged with taking care of the cameras at Holcomb Farm.  MH, please delete my picture!

Top of Carpenter Falls with plaque on rock.

Below the falls.

Falls are part of Beach Brook.

I hadn't initially noticed this jumble of boulders.

Looking downstream from the falls.

Common garter snake did not move when I got close.

Millipede.

Beach Brook near southern end of Holcomb trails before joining Salmon Brook.

Heading back across fields of Holcomb Farm CSA.

2017 Hike #10: Holcomb Farm East Side Trails - West Granby, CT

Date Hiked: Sunday, March 19, 2017
Estimated distance:  1.82 miles
Weather: 39°F, sunny
Resources: Holcomb Farm, Trail Map
Highlights of the trip:  views over snowy fields
Progress toward 2017 Outdoor Goals:  10/52 hikes; 29.77/250 miles hiked


After my snowshoe fail the other day, I decided to try hiking without them.  I had thought about strapping the snowshoes to a pack and bringing them along, just in case.  I fumbled with strapping them on the pack and finally gave up.  I figured by picking a place where other people had packed the snow down, I would be okay without them.  People often walk their dogs on the east side of Holcomb Farm, so that was where I decided to go.

OpenStreetMap from my MapMyHike app.

Sure enough, the trail up the hill was pretty well worn.  The sun was shining and melting the snow.

Looking to the southwest from the bench.

I started to doubt myself as I made my way over to the bench at the viewpoint.  Not as many people had traveled this way and I was trying to stay in others footprints.  When I got to the bench, there was another person there on snowshoes.  He said the trails in the woods were pretty well traveled and packed down, so I thought I had made the right choice not to bring my snowshoes.

Entrance to the woods from the field with a trail sign.

No.  I had not made the right choice.  While the trails through the woods were well used, the snow was pretty mushy and hard to walk on - like walking on a sandy beach.  The trails are also narrow, and I felt bad for post holing ski/snowshoe trails.  (Although, I was not the only one who had been walking out there.)

I took the blue trail in a clock-wise direction.  I went past the first turn on to the red trail and took the second turn, which went south along an old barbed wire fence and cedar trees, to a field.  I walked across the field and back down to the road.

Today's lesson was "be prepared".  If I had strapped my snowshoes to a pack, I certainly would have put them on.  It would have been easier along the trail, and I wouldn't be hobbling around with sore calves 3 days later.  Hopefully, this is a lesson learned.

2017 Hike #8: Holcomb Farm - West Granby, CT

Date Hiked: Tuesday, February 21, 2017
Estimated distance:  2.82 miles
Weather: 44°F, overcast
Resources: Holcomb Farm, Trail Map
Highlights of the trip:  view of stream
Progress toward 2017 Outdoor Goals:  8/52 hikes; 23.22/250 miles hiked

My hiking partner had a Tuesday off, so we decided to do a local hike.  We headed over to Holcomb Farm in West Granby and hiked the trails on the west side of the farm.  I wasn't sure what we would find for trail conditions, but I had my Microspikes with me just in case.

Before we got too far, I decided to put the spikes on.  There were icy patches near the barns.  We had to pass through the gates to cross the field, and there was only patchy snow here.  In the woods, the snow was very soft and the spikes ended up accumulating snow, so off they came.

I wanted to zigzag our way to the top and back down again to get more miles, but I didn't have a trail map with me.  I ended up zigging instead of zagging, so our hike was a little shorter than intended.  Still a pretty good workout because of the soft snow.  It was just nice to get outside.

We went down as far as the bridge over Beach Brook and turned back because I was pretty sure we would not be able to cross the brook farther down.

 A nice hike.  It can be made longer by connecting to the dirt Broad Hill Road and hiking in the McLean Game Refuge or by doing the trails on the east side of the farm.  (The trails on the east side can get very muddy in the spring).