Back at Hollister-Whitehouse Preserve

After exploring the old Country Club road,  I headed over to the Hollister-Whitehouse Family Nature Preserve to hike a section I still hadn't visited. It was late in the afternoon and much of the hike is in a deep valley with very little sunshine so the photos are kinda lousy. I can imagine in the sunny summer with the trees lush with foliage,  this stretch would be gorgeous.

Hollister Preserve South Loop

Today the weather was a bit brisk but sunny so I went for a hike at Hollister Preserve which is nearby. I've already hiked in from the north and paralleled the stream before ascending to the overlook -- so today I came in from the southwest instead. 

I choose the trail that headed east:

In a hundred feet or so are a bunch of large cement pipes/conduits - kinda strange... 

...but the rest of the hike was "cement free" :-)

After checking out the overlook views of Hartford...

...I did the south loop - it was great!

Hollister-Whitehouse Preserve

 I took a short hike this afternoon that surprisingly had a bit of a climb but you were rewarded with a view! Hollister-Whitehouse Family Nature Preserve is very close by and using the AllTrails app, I checked it out.

It turns out the kiosk sign has more detail than the AllTrails map but even this map missed a few trails in the north section.

The Hike along the Stream

I parked in the Tall Timbers Road entrance and hiked the park in a counter-clockwise direction. The trail follows a small creek for quite a ways before ascending the hill.

There was a short but interesting rocky section. Since I have been scouting out old feldspar quarries in the woods recently, this section looked uncannily like slag from an old quarry but I think I conjecture too much and it was probably just nature's geological randomness :-)

More trail before the big climb...

The Climb

It was a bit of a slog up this hill (250 ft or so!) but the view was cool.

The Vista

The side trails were not marked on the AllTrails map

There was a nice view of Hartford in the distance. I imagine on a clear sunny day - it must be even better!

The Descent

There were quite a few other side trails off to the north (not on the maps!) which I wandered on for a bit. The final descent had quite a bit of rocky outcroppings.

All in all the hike was more interesting than I expected and I can see returning--all seasons--to enjoy the views and forest.