Spent the day with Jane marking in new Horse Trails.

[George-CT]

We drove over with the car on Back Road which follows the state of Connecticut Boundary. We had permission to add in horse trails there as we please. Its an unused piece of state land that other than 3 fishing ponds and some bow hunting sits idle. Even found a few old barn foundations I never new were there. Detecting there in early spring.

We used the GPS and the quad for the stuff on the left of the picture, mostly trails I cut in years ago, and then we walk it from the Fire Pit on out to the upper right to and old set of train rail tracks. Which was the reason for them. ONce you get on the old abandon rail lines, which you can see in the upper right at marker 39, you can travel just over 80 miles on them. they are used for bridle trails, hiking, mt biking etc. Anything but motor driven vehicles except snow mobiles if over 6 inches of snow on them. They don't rip them up at all.

When I got home I transfered it to Google Earth so I could get a better idea where am. Rocky over there so a lot of weaving and bobbing. ONe nice trout brook to cross. Figured some might get a kick out of seeing it. I live on Beaver Hill and you can see our entrance. Fun day. It made it to 39 which is a heat wave right now, so didn't want to spend it indoors. Jane and I made a day of it.

Happy trails.

George-CT

 

[Micheal_R]

Or is it for trail riding?

Calm seas

Micheal

 

[George-CT]

course we are working on down in the middle there by the indoor. A lot of this area is pretty bony. In certain areas, you have to go around the big piles of rubble left over from glaciers. I need to take some pictures of those. Hard to believe at times just how many rocks and how deep they were. Yet a lot of this way back when, was farm land, still find all the stone walled in acre fields, cellar holes and even quite a few rock walled in pens for the live stock. A lot of hand dug wells also. We try to mark them all. Guess a lot of them were for the animals. Most now have a big flat field stone over it. Again, I'll get pictures. There are about 5 barns in the local area that are looking to ride this but most don't know the area so We are marking it all with orange ribbon so they can see them. Hopefull they will go in and limb them up where needed. I'll go back in with the chain saw on the quad and drop what's come down in storms. I see a few bony areas where we may need to edge it and put in a little fill to give them better footing. ONce you make it to the old Airline Rails beds, its really great except a lot of sections are long straight like it would be for a train. Those can get boring. The nice part it goes thru some really nice areas and other wise you could not get in them.

You might enjoy reading about it on this link. Full of pictures and the links you see give even more info. Our section here is the Windham, Hampton, Pomfet, or northern Section and it goes to the Mass and Ri border. We run it clean into Providence RI which adds another 40 miles as the crow flies. A lot of the locals use the walls where they blasted out the ledges for rock climbing lessons. As you head into the center of the state, they pave a lot of them and most of those are used by locals in the city. Here, 99 percent of it is dirt, gravel or whatever the rail bed was made of. Amazing to see areas the build up to be level thru swamps.... No wonder they died young.

Here is the link and lots of info. Airline Rail trails

Click on Photo's and go to Norther Section and you can see our area out this way....

George-CT

 

[Royal]

I went out for a hike around Marl Lake today. Two and a half hour hike and it was rough. The first part was nice high ground through Oak but the last half was very rough through a cedar marsh. I was doing it for exercise so the roughness was just fine with me but I was sure happy when I saw the dang truck!

It is slightly above freezing right now but tomorrow it is going to rain and get near 40. We have not had squat for snow this year.

 

[George-CT]

Know what you mean about glad to see the car. We hiked in from the back side so that was 2 miles, but with changes of 400 feet in elevation over and over it gets to you. So short 150 difference, but steep. We were pretty tired. We left right after lunch to get the warm part of the day, about 1 and got home just at dusk. About 4 hours but we were on the move all the time. Only about 4 and a half miles I'd say. All of it was in big old red oaks. Some nice timber in there. I have a nuke stress test this Tuesday morning for the heart again, so might as well get my body up for a good showing on the tread mill. I ride the bike here in the house every day while watching TV. Anything to keep active in the winter.

I see your thermometer bit the dust. Looks like you guys are having a winter like us. You know its winter, but no where near what it can be like. We had the couple of big storms and now cold at night, days are decent. Usually make it above freezing in afternoon. Down to just a few inches of snow now and bare in some spots on south side of hills. I'll take it. Nights are low to mid teens. We have a rain storm coming tomorrow night, 1 to 3 inches. Rain is better than snow. No shoveling when its done. Works for me....Just hope it don't wash the driveway. We have 3 decent hills on our driveway and the water gets cranking down them pretty good from the tire ruts.

2 more weeks and you will be rubbing elbows with the Island folk. Sounds good to me. Enjoy, thats a nice treat.

George-CT

 

[Royal]

it was ten above and that thing was stuck. I tried to free it up and got Pizzed and it bit the dust.