The Hike -
After pulling into the parking lot you will first see a bulletin board at the start of the hike where you can grab a trail map and a picture of Smokey the Bear welcomes you. The temperature was around 30 degrees when we started, so both of us layered up pretty well. You will follow the Undermountain trail which is a blue blazed trail. Parts of this trail can get a little steep, but would be manageable for most people. However, given the layers we both had on, we found ourselves breaking into a sweat and needing to shed the hat and gloves. Being late fall there were many leaves on the ground which made the trail a little slippery and also sometimes difficult to see all the rocks underneath those leaves. The trekking poles definitely helped on this part of the trail.
A little after 1.1 miles of hiking on the Undermountain trail you will come to the junction of Paradise Trail where we took a right. This is still a blue blazed trail. On the Paradise Trail you will pass a tent campsite on the right. There didn't appear to be too many markings on this part of the trail, however the trail was pretty well defined so we didn't have any issues. This part of the trail was fairly flat with steeper parts in the beginning of the trail. In total Paradise Trail was 2.1 miles.
At the end of Paradise Trail you will come to a junction with the Appalachian trail where you will take a left and follow the white blazes that mark the trail. You will stay on this trail for about .7 miles which will take you to the summit. This section of the trail was definitely the toughest of the whole hike as there are large rocks that you will need to climb up. Adding to the challenge was that most of the large rocks were completely covered in ice. In the summertime this would be fun. Today it was slightly frightening but we successfully made it up without any injuries. We thought about turning around, but would have been disappointed coming all that way and not making it to the top. We had to put our hiking poles in our bags and mainly use our hands to hold on to the rocks and limbs to pull ourselves up and maneuver around the ice.
We finally made it to the top and it was predictably pretty windy. There is a large monument marking the highest ground in CT at 2,354 feet. There are large piles of rocks that you can climb up which have a very nice view. Ross and I like to take a #TopOfTheMountainSelfie for Instagram on all of our hiking trips. This was slightly challenging with the strong winds and some loose stones, but we managed. We had packed sandwiches and snacks to have at the top, but with the cold weather an wind we opted to keep moving.
We headed south and continued down the Appalachian trail. Going down the mountain this way was not as steep and much less icy as it obviously got more sun than the north side. We followed the Appalachian Trail for .9 miles until we got to Riga Junction and took a left on the Undermountain Trail. From here we simply followed the Undermountain trail 1.9 miles back to the car.
The hike was definitely worth it and made for a nice adventure. In total it was 6.7 mile loop that took us about 3 hours and 20 minutes to complete. I could see this being a very popular hike in the summertime. Now on to our next adventure! :)
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Shot from the top of the rocks at the summit |
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| #TopOfTheMountainSelfie. Not our best camera work. |
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| Sign at Riga Junction |
Coming from Enfield CT we hopped on to 91 South and got off at exit 40 and then connected from 20 West and followed all the twists and turn of the backcountry roads to get us to Route 44 West. We stayed on Route 44 for a little over 20 miles turning right onto Cobble Road. At the end of the road we turned right onto Under Mountain Road which is Route 41. On that road you will go about 2.8 miles where you will find a decent size dirt parking lot located on the left with a sign for Under Mountain Trail in blue. The address we plugged into the GPS was 1-31 Food Hills Road Salisbury, CT and didn't have any trouble finding the parking lot.
