Of Grimm's Woods

by Mary Jasch

Although I love what I do in life, it was time to get away. I needed the captivity of adventure - the unknown, in nature.

We set out on a two-day hike on The Appalachian Trail (AT) in Northwest Connecticut's 240 million-year-old mountains, parking the car at Housatonic Meadows State Park in the town of Cornwall Bridge. A friend drops us ten miles north in Falls Village, where we head up Sharon Mountain on a pine needle trail.

K, Petey and I have hiked the AT in New Jersey where it's mostly rock, so this path is a treat. The climb is gentle through open deciduous and evergreen woodland in Housatonic State Forest.

Except for an occasional boulder, the landscape is rockless. The path is wide so the vegetation doesn't brush up against us, and the risk of ticks is minimal.

The woods look young - birch, shadblow, chestnut oak, white pine. Seedlings and ferns cover the forest floor but there is very little shrub layer. In this filtered sunlight, an incredible number of fungi species grow.

Two shade-tolerant goldenrods follow the trail -- Silverrod with white flowers and delicate blue-stemmed goldenrod with flowers arranged along the top of a curving stem.

At about 1,380 feet, Belter's Bump offers a view of the Housatonic River Valley that dips across to other mountains and other state forests.

We reach Sharon Mountain Campsite in time to leisurely set up the tents and cook dinner on K's stove in the daylight. There is smooth ground on which to pitch the tents, crooked mountain laurel branches to stash the backpacks, and a tall chestnut oak with a great branch for hanging the food.

On this cool drizzly day, we've seen no other humans and begin to feel alone in the forest with the bears as light dims. But besides the call of a whip-or-will, we have only our own bruin-laced brains to disturb our sleep.

Day Two is sunny and the forest feels playful, straight out of Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretyl.

We reach Sharon Mt. Road, which cinches the bottoms of Sharon Mountain and Mt. Easter, our next climb. The landscape immediately changes and it's beginning to look a lot like Jersey, everywhere we go. Grassy rock outcrops, rocky trail, dense underbrush with blueberry so thick that bears could be hiding, chestnut oak and laurel -- but no views, for the hills are clothed in tall trees.

Suddenly a thunderstorm streaks our way. We look for trees that are less tall to hide under, away from lightning. They're all tall. As we are pelted, K pulls a poncho over her and lays on her sleeping bag pad. I dig out my tent cover and pull it over Petey and me as we crouch on the dirt. K says she's so comfortable, she's taking a nap. We've got metal everywhere - shoes, rings, snaps, zippers. Well, it's been a good life.

Soon after the storm, Roger's Ramp, aka "Fat Man's Squeeze," appears before us. It's a bunch of jumbled boulders between two vertical walls of stone. Even Petey is impressed.

The path gets steep and rocky, outcrops etch the ridgetop and boulders and ledges shape the land. The plants are familiar - sweetfern, pitch pine, scrub oak, wintergreen. They all grow along the trail on New Jersey's Kittatinny Ridge and in the Pine Barrens - they like that easy drainage. The forest is different here, with tall thick understory that closes in around the footpath.

We must make it to the car before dark to get home for work tomorrow. The trail map says we'll hike seven miles, cross streams and abandoned roads before we reach the blue trail called "Pine Knob Loop Trail" -- our final descent to the parking lot.

We don't make it. As sunlight dims, we look for a flat spot to pitch the tents. One must be flexible on the trail - a lesson we learn constantly. I find a mossy bed and K finds a leafy spot. Sleep comes no quicker this night, for we still think about bears -- after all, we're from Jersey.

At dawn we unzip the tents and look out at gray sky. It's almost freezing and Petey wants to stay in the tent. We hit the trail before coffee and are glad we stopped last evening when we did for there are no level spots to pitch tents for quite a while.

The footpath rises and falls with boulders and sheer rock that we scramble up and shimmy down after admiring the view. We pick our way on rocks over the Caesar Brook and cross a brook on a log bridge. At one rock slab, we take off the packs and toss them up. Petey can't make it up so I crawl under branches on the hillside until I find a soft spot where he can grip the dirt, then coax him up.

Like the AT that runs across the Kittatinny Ridge in the Jersey Appalachians, the forest plants are the same species. But this is a different set of ancient mountains and the trail here is not in the Appalachians like it mostly is in Jersey until its last ten miles when it jumps onto the Highlands. This is the Housatonic Highlands, part of the Reading Prong that starts in Pennsylvania and ends in Vermont's Green Mountains.

Since we are already a day late getting back to work, the rest of the hike goes happily without the pressure of having to get somewhere before dark. Finally, the blue blaze appears. Its downhill is adventure-laden.

Soon we see road but there's one last stream to cross, and K and Petey wade right through it on their way to civilization. They're taking no chances on this dash to the car.

The fun is way too short. Next year, K, Petey and I plan to do a week-long walk on the AT - this famous trail that blazes its way through the East Coast mountains.

For a great day hike, park at the Housatonic Meadows State Park parking lot on Route 7 and take the blue-blazed Pine knob Loop Trail. Lots of rocks to scale, ferns, mosses, lichens, views and exercise.

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published November 01, 2003