New England Trail Hike #6: CT Section 17 (Part 1!)

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 the trails are very well-traveled, as this is one of the more well-known hiking spots in the region. However, as we veered away from the water and up the trail, things got quieter. While were headed to Talcott Mountain, we were approaching from a lesser known route. Most people head up the mountain via a trailhead off Route 189 in Simsbury. The trail has a large parking area and a pretty steep section to start, and then the rest of the way you're walking the ridgeline with nice views until you arrive at the official summit and the tower you can head up to get even better views. 

We were approaching the mountain (okay, by "mountain" I mean it's elevation tops out close to 1,000 feet, which is a mountain for Connecticut) from the south rather than the east on a more roundabout trail. This happened to be the day of a huge fall festival, and we could hear the happenings on the summit well before we saw it. There was music, food trucks, and lots and lots of people. But it was just such a darned beautiful day, and everyone seemed to be in such a good mood, taking it all in, that it was hard to be annoyed at the busyness. 

We sat for awhile on a ledge, admiring the view of the quickly changing leaves. That day we didn't climb up the tower, as we have a number of times. Please note that (at least in more recent times), the tower is not open every day, and is often more likely to be open during the weekends. 

My favorite part about this section of the trail is when we headed down. The trail ended up paralleling the more popular trail down the mountain, but up on a quieter higher ledge just slightly to the south. For awhile we were looking over at the busier trail while we stayed up on rocks up above, glancing down at the tops of trees. Interestingly I'd walked on the other trail probably a dozen times but never noticed this trail right nearby. It was refreshing to get a different view of a familiar walk. Below is the view down on the busy trail from our spot up above. 

As we wound back to the end of the trail, we were glad we'd decided to break up the section. While at some point we definitely wanted to get to hiking 10 miles in a day or even more, we weren't there yet. Or at least, not in shape enough to hike at a relatively good clip and still enjoy ourselves. That time will come. I hope. We were ready to call it a day and get back out there the next morning. Our total hiked this day was a little over 5 miles. 

Something about this path of stones (below) cheered me as we reached the end of our day. I appreciate the hard work the trail maintainers put in to make these walks really pleasant!