Rediscovering the Connecticut Wilderness — Part 2

Scott at the lookout above Black Rock State Park.

This is a continuation of Scott and Michael’s account of their three-day hike from Wolcott to Litchfield along the Mattatuck Trail.

The next day we moved on, eager to see more. We traveled down now, past things that the trail description said were there, but we didn’t see. Past something called "Balancing Rock." There was supposed to be a trail register there, but we didn’t see the rock, or the register. Down, down—the trail, while still marked, disappeared. We followed the blazes and blazed our own trail. The smell of the wastewater treatment plant hit us at the same time as the sound of the traffic.

We popped out onto a main road in Thomaston. It was Saturday morning and the street was filled with traffic whizzing by at 50 mph. We picked up our pace to a humble 2 mph. We passed great scars in the earth and factories with names that meant nothing, bearing banners proclaiming "ISO 9001 Certified." The trail took a right, heading up a steep road and then back into the woods. We knew that it skips up over a knob and then cuts back down, emerging on this same road a few hundred yards ahead. We had no inclination to take this detour, so we stayed on the road.

We crossed the Naugatuck River and stopped to take a picture. Looking out, it could have been any river in any beautiful place—until we looked down and saw the refuse lining the riverbank and bottom. A child’s bicycle lay at the bottom of the river. A trout swam in its shadow.

Mike stands on the trail under Route 8 in Thomaston.

We stopped in Thomaston to re-supply on food and water. After this point the trail got crazy, taking a sharp left, curving on the road past more factories and industry, then heading back into the woods again. One blaze only, then none. A few yards down the road the blazes began again, but now the trail itself was gone, thick and choked with weeds. We consulted the trail guide for the 100th time. We had to cross the river, so here seemed like as good a place as any. We found a shallow spot and got only a little wet—no big deal since it was a warm spring day. Going left we walked about a quarter of a mile before my directional alarm went off. Something was wrong. We were going the wrong way. We turned around.

The trail went under the highway, and we entered the Mattatuck State Forest. It’s a giddy feeling to stand under the highway, knowing that tons of metal and steel are zooming over your head. The trail began to climb. It meandered, twisting and turning back upon itself. We should go that way, but it wants to go this way. It takes six miles to travel what is, in reality, only two.

Again the blazes disappeared; the trees are unmarked here. We were left with little else but choices in the woods. We were eager to see Leatherman’s Cave. The Leatherman is a local legend, part truth and part folklore. The story goes that the Leatherman was an immigrant from France, sometime in the 1800s. He left his native country because of a jilted love and came to the United States to live the life of a hermit. Dressed head to toe in leather, he walked a circuitous path through Connecticut and New York, stopping at the same places at the same time each year to earn his keep, cobbling leather. The Mattatuck trail is part of the Leatherman’s old route. Perhaps this is why the trail is so serpentine.

We missed the trail entirely, but did manage to find a family that was also walking in circles in the woods. They, too, were looking for the cave. They went one way, we went another. These were the first people we had encountered hiking the trail.

We picked the route that evidently goes up and over the cave, and it is a steep one at that. We stopped to huff and puff at the top, where we were provided with a more than 180-degree view of the rolling Connecticut countryside. From up there the only signs of civilization we saw were a cell phone tower and the highway heading off into the distance. It was easy to ignore those things and imagine the way Connecticut was, probably as little as 100 years ago.

We traveled down, across Route 6, and into Black Rock State Park. This was the part of the trip we had not been looking forward to, knowing that it is quite steep. At first it was a beautiful walk in the woods, under shady pines. But then the climb began. Connecticut may not be full of tall mountains, but it still makes for some challenging hiking. We rested at the side of the trail to get water from a small waterfall. (Kids, don’t try this at home—we used an especially designed filter for this purpose.) Finally we reached the rock, elevation about 800 feet. There was a wide vista, and we could clearly see the route we had taken. Down below, the park stretched out before our feet. We saw campers and people playing baseball; roads and grocery stores dotted the distance.

From this point it was three miles to our next landmark, Route 109, which makes its way north past the reservoirs that supply Waterbury. The trail winds down through prehistoric stands of trees. It appears very much the way you imagine it would have looked millions of years ago. Except for the sound. We can hear the sound of Route 109 getting closer and then farther away. I pretend that it is a dinosaur. I can imagine it as a T-Rex stalking through these very woods.

To be continued …