The End of Summer

The first signs of autumn appear in Hubbard Park.

Visit #889, Sunday 17 August 14, 7:50-11:20AM, 7.0 miles.
Temps in the low 70's, dry and partly cloudy.

Since last week's discussion about possible extended hours to the access road to Castle Craig, I wanted to see how much trash I'd find walking the road to Castle Craig, partly as proof to you, dear reader, that it's an issue which needs addressing if extended road hours come to pass.

Last time I'd walked a good portion of this road was in July. Today's haul was about par for the course.

Enroute up the hill, I came upon a hemlock which had fallen into the road around that July period mentioned above, but hadn't been moved yet.

Nothing major, but I'm surprised it wasn't touched. A couple minutes' worth of muscle was all it took.

You can see my bag of trash is pretty full. I was hoping it would serve me at least to the fork in the road at the top. It did. I deposited it there for later pickup by the Meriden Parks Department.

My second objective of today's work was to open up a section of the Blue Trail between Castle Craig and just in the distance of the photo above. I was on that trail last week when I noticed it was getting a little overgrown. What occurred between last week and this week was the appearance of numerous florescent survey markers on this trail, as well as similar colored ribbon tied onto trees along the trail.

I wonder if this is in relation to the orange markings I found last week? Well, I didn't ask any more questions but just began removing all the markers as I hiked.

I kept collecting handfuls of the markers and placing them in my bag. The path I followed in retrieving them didn't seem to lead in any logical direction, but I think I collected all of them. I will have to return to cover some markings I missed last week, however.

I took the walkbridge over I-691 and back to the park. Surprisingly, the trail of survey markers lead all the way back to the hillside behind the daffodils.

I dropped off my second bag of trash and called it a day, a day closer to autumn...