The Amateur Hiker

 The next day was the second of two perfect autumn New England days, and we set out early to tackle this longer section (for us) of the trail. We headed to the southern end of the section, Farmington, to hike approx. 5 1/2 miles north and end at the same parking area on Rt. 44 in West Hartford where we'd begun our hike the day before.  This trail improbably begins in the most atypical of places -- right off a very high trafficked area, just across the street from the monolith collection of facilities that is UConn Health Center. At first glance you'd never think this area had a trail hiding behind the trees, and I'm guessing this was probably something added with the creation of the New England Trail.  I'm not going to lie, I wasn't all that impressed with the first part of this section, as it was mainly a road walk past really nice homes. This was great for getting a glance at rolling green lawns and gated mini-mansions, but it didn't feel much like a hike. It

The next weekend the kids were with the grandparents and we were hiking on our own in part to celebrate our anniversary. It turned out to be a good thing we were kid-less, because we'd been eyeing CT section 17 for awhile but knew none of us (but the kids especially) were ready to do a total of 10.3 miles in a day. There's a reason this blog is called The Amateur Hiker. Dan and I DID think we could split up those 10 miles over a couple of days, so we decided to hike this trail in two parts over a Saturday and a Sunday. The total of this trail runs from the towns of Farmington through Avon, West Hartford, Bloomfield and Simsbury. Near the middle of that the trail cross Route 44, and that's where we began our hike (on the north side of Rt. 44).  We parked near the West Hartford Reservoir, and the first part of the trail is very flat and pleasant and walks along the reservoir for a while. This is a very popular area and there were people all over the place. In fact, most of t

We started the trail with an extra two hikers -- my parents! As a kid we'd always hiked several easy to moderate mountains in Massachusetts, where I grew up, and Maine, where we'd vacation in the summer. They love hiking but have found mountains have become more difficult as they've grown older. We thought this trail would be a good option, and it was -- for the most part.  We got started late, and while it was a beautifully sunny early October day, the wind was fierce at times, making it unseasonably cool. The trail starts steeply from a parking area just down the road from Old Newgate prison. As with most of the NET in this area, it levels out once you get to the ridgeline, where you enjoy some really nice views, especially on a day as clear as this one.  There were some definite rock scrambles on this trail that the NET website describes as "examples of the Metacomet basalt eroding into chimney-like spires along the cliff edge." We'd been hiking for a numbe