Pistapaug Mountain – Trimountain – Reed Gap
Route 17 – Route 68
Durham, CT 6.5 Miles
We started our day, first, by leaving Sidetrack’s car at the Rte 68 Trail-head, then driving my little blue Hyundai to the starting area on Rte 17 (this would be the third, and final, time we’d use this parking area). As trails often do in Connecticut we started out immediately going up, and up, and up. The climb up Pistapaug Mountain was gradual, using an old Tote Road to wind you up the Mountain. According to the the CT Walk Book the ascent contains many side trails so one should watch the blazes closely to avoid becoming sidetracked. We never saw any other trails past the first 50 yards so. Occasionally the blue trail leaves the old Tote road but that’s all we saw as far as other trails go. The blazes on the blue trail are clear and easy to follow.
The top of Pistapaug Mountain offers view after view. It seems every view we came to just got better. Since we were spending so much time taking in views & taking pictures I decided that Pistapaug Mountain should instead be named Distraction Mountain. The descent down Pistapaug was less gradual than the ascent, we eventually came to our first road crossing of the day down in the Paug Gap.
Howd Road was pretty, the road was dark black from being rained on & freshly paved, the orange & white lines were bright against the black. The road was surrounded by tree’s and beautiful fall foliage, colors all exacerbated by being wet. A shiny, new, little blue Hyundai came down the winding road. I watched it pass by and thought, then said, “Wow, it’s like we’re in a Hyundai commercial.” Right after the little blue Hyundai passed a little white Ford passed and “Whoa! Now it’s
like we’re in a Ford commercial!” We crossed Howd Road and found ourselves standing at the bottom of Fowler Mountain.Fowler Mountain was a steeper ascent than Pistapaug, but not really all that steep by CT standards. Partway up Fowler Mountain we got a minimal view of Pistapaug Mountain and Pistapaug Pond, that
would be our last official view from on top of Fowler Mountain. Fowler Mountain was a cruel mountain. Our trail followed an old Tote road about 50 yards or so in from the edge of the mountain the whole time we were just far enough in that we couldn’t take in any of the view. About halfway across the top of Fowler Mtn Sidetrack suddenly said “I can’t take it anymore!” and left the trail, taking off towards the edge of the mountain. I stopped and watched struggling with that inner voice in my head. “Hikers are supposed to stay on the trail, but I want to see the view”. I went back and forth with that voice for a few seconds then took off towards where Sidetrack was standing. From where we were we could see various houses, we could also see Ulbrich Reservoir; Sidetrack also pointed out one of the points of Trimountain in the distance, it looked so far. We walked along the edge of the mountain for 100 yards or so until finally re-joining the blue trail. The hiking purist in me thought “there’s 100 yards or so of trail you didn’t hike!” Ugh! I resisted the urge to run back and continued on, shortly thereafter we began our descent down Fowler Mtn.We would never quite descend all the way to street level between Fowler Mtn and Trimountain, which was nice. It was another gradual descent, eventually crossing the abandoned Wadsworth Farm Road which extends from Durham to Wallingford. This road is part of the Washington Trail, so named because it is said to have been used by General George Washington in 1775 and 1789. Take a 100 yard
side trip on the Washington trail and you’ll find a metal post in the ground that should inform you this trail was used by Washington, unfortunately though, the marker with this information on it was stolen sometime between 2006 and 2008. We took a picture of the post and moved on. I’m not sure who maintains the Washington Trail now, if anyone, but the trail was maintained by the CFPA from 1932 until sometime in the 1940’s. Maybe if we can find information, or a map, we’ll come back and hike it sometime.Moving on, we eventually found ourselves looking at a scree area at the base of Trimountain. It was just loose rock as far as the eye could see. The trail began to weave along the base of the mountain. It’s places like these that make me really glad I have my poles. For those readers who don’t know what it’s like to hike on trap rock; imagine with me if you will, a trail literally covered in rocks of varying sizes from pebbles, to larger rocks the size of bricks, these rocks have sharp edges and they’re piled at least to a depth of three high. Now, it’s fall so cover these rocks with about a 1-inch layer of wet leaves and imagine attempting to walk, or rather, stumble, across it. My poles saved me from falling a number of times. After stumbling across the base of the mountain we were ready to
begin our steep ascent. The trail that ascends the mountain was also covered in a thick layer of trap rock, though most of the rocks here were smaller rocks the size of a fist & smaller. The basic idea here is to plant your foot and as you begin to transfer your weight you’ll find that your foot slips until eventually the rock digs into the earth enough to support your weight so you can lift your next foot and begin again. Occasionally as you transfer your weight the rocks will grab but then slip again causing you to suddenly slip, which again made me extremely glad to have my poles.
As we approached the top we came across a sign warning hikers to stay on the trail. This part of the Mattabesset was actually closed for a time in 2008 due to reports of bullets from a nearby firing range supposedly straying onto the trail and creating a dangerous situation for hikers. The trail was re-opened after it was investigated and deemed safe. We could hear the firing range and when we finally got to an area where there was a view we could see the firing range. Seriously? Looking at the range and the surrounding forest, plus the distance to the range and height of the mountain there was no way a bullet from that range was any threat to hikers. We sat on the edge of the mountain, enjoyed the view, and ate our lunch. Our guess is that people just
aren’t used to being so close to a firing range, they’re loud, we live near one though so the constant popping of guns is just normal background noise to use.After finishing our lunch & pointing out a tick crawling up Sidetrack’s jacket to him we packed our stuff back into our bags. As we were about to wander off Sidetrack spotted something in the grass. He walked over to pick it up, it was some kind of metal planter that had clearly been used as target practice. If people were finding bullets on top of Trimountain this is possibly evidence that the bullets came from someone shooting illegally on top of Trimountain, not from the range below. We shook our heads and took off down the trail towards Rte 68. The ascent from Trimountain is pretty long, it seems to wind down the mountain forever. The first part of the descent was much like the ascent only this time you plant your foot on the
downhill, transfer your weight and hope the rocks dig into the earth so that you don’t end up slipping and landing on your butt. Again, loving the poles. At one point we ran into an area where it looks like maybe a trail re-route is being started? We’re not sure, but we followed the fresh blazes and ended up more or less bushwhacking back to the trail. We also noticed the trees are only blazed on one side, coming the other way you wouldn’t know not to follow the old trail. Once we got back to the old trail we stood there a minute looking back at the “new trail?” and wondering what the trail maintainer was doing and why they didn’t finish. We shrugged it off and continued coming next to a water crossing that looks like it could be pretty difficult in the wet season or after heavy rains. Luckily water levels are low in CT right now.Nearing the end of the hike we ran across Cattails shelter. This shelter is not listed on any CT Blue Trail sites because it’s not a CFPA maintained shelter. It’s actually maintained by a resident backpacker along the trail. We stopped and read the log book and added ourselves to it while sitting in the shelter and enjoying a break. There was fresh water that could be used to fill up empty water bottles, tea bags, a kerosene lantern, copies of backpacker magazine, there was even dry kindling under the shelter, afire-pit with a grate for cooking and even a blanket stored in a tub under the shelter. How cool! We could technically have backpacked this section of the trail if we’d wanted, and maybe we will at some point. The experience made me wish we had a trail near our property that we could build and maintain a shelter on. 🙂
After visiting the shelter and enjoying a Halloween decoration planted in a nearby, and strangely “naughty” tree, it was just a quick walk out to where the car was waiting for us with a soda each and some string cheese in a cooler for the drive home. 🙂
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