909 - Mountain Biking the Pond Gut side...

Although I have hiked the seldom-traversed back side of Taconic 909 -  I hadn't biked it. Well - it is truly a marvelous area with quite a bit of challenging single track and amazing scenery!

Pond Gut Entrance

At the Pond Gut entrance

I stayed on the carriage road all the way north until it turned westward where the Getaway trail connected...

On the old carriage road

Getaway (orange) -Wow what a great trail!

After riding on Getaway for quite a bit, I mistakenly veered off Getaway and ended back on the old carriage road so I looked for and found the entrance to Outer Gut (blue) and rode the whole thing! Amazing trail - this is a masterpiece! (truth be told... this old man walked a lot of the uphills but I still enjoyed it - you are really deep in the woods here and the vibe is ancient as if the Druids walked here...!)

There's a long section where you ride on the edge of the marsh . =-
by this point you are deep in the gut

Outer Gut twists and turns quite a bit so after quite a bit of riding (and shameful hike-a-bike) I stared to get worried that somehow I was lost and the trail wasn't gonna loop back! This really is a long and tough trail. Fortunately, after sticking it out, the trail did loop back as expected and my worries re being lost disappeared... whew...

you reconnect with the old carriage road and swing by a gate -
the ancient carriage road continued northward here

I flew back south on the much-easier-to-ride carriage road and then swung off to ride Pirate Creek (yellow). It was much more manageable than Outer Gut but there were still plenty of challenges and a few up and down hilly sections.

Had a bloody wound on both legs from my pedals but what's a decent ride without a little scrape! <wink>

Great trails - great place to ride for sure! Trail Map here >

2019 Trails Day Hike - Parlor Rock

This year, the route for our Trails Day hike was a little different. We started at the Dog Park parking lot and headed down thru a bit of the north section of the valley on the Red Trail. The weather was great!

 We then ascended the Indian ledge area, Everyone agreed - it was awesome! :-)

 We reassembled near the Pump House trail in the Whitney parking lot for a group photo.

Next we headed up through Parlor Rock including a stop on the big rock for the adventurous. I forgot to take a photo but here's one of that spot from a previous trek:

Parlor Rock is a small area but the scenery here is delightful.

 On the way back, we paid a closer visit to the Radcliffe Woolen Mills ruins...

  and the awesome glacially sculpted channel of the Pequonnock River:

This caught me eye - the diagonal fallen tree propped up by the cliff and the starkly horizontal fungi protruding from the side...

All in all it was a great hike and folks really enjoyed it!


National Trails Day Hikes - Trumbull, CT