CFPA New England Trail Series: East River Preserve LbNA #69427
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Add Location| Owner: | CT Forest & Park Assoc  |
|---|---|
| Plant date: | Nov 1, 2015 |
| Location: | Foote Bridge Rd/Bearhouse Hill Rd |
| City: | Guilford |
| County: | New Haven |
| State: | Connecticut |
| Boxes: | 1 |
| Found by: | My Hopeful Bunny |
|---|---|
| Last found: | Sep 11, 2021 |
| Status: | FFFFF |
| Last edited: | Nov 20, 2015 |
New England Trail Letterboxing Series: East River Preserve
Total Distance: Approximately 2 miles
Start at Foote Bridge Rd/Bearhouse Hill Rd in Guilford, CT. Note: The name of this road varies by source; it’s called Foote Bridge Rd by Google Maps and Bing Maps, while the physical street sign displays Bearhouse Hill Rd. Either way, it is a short dead-end street off of Goose Ln, approximately 0.3 miles southeast of the Goose Ln-Sullivan Dr junction.
Google Maps Directions: https://goo.gl/lW3mht
The 8-part New England Trail Letterboxing Series was created by Connecticut’s oldest non-profit conservation organization, the Connecticut Forest & Park Association (CFPA). Grab your gear and get ready to experience one of America’s national scenic trails right here in your own backyard. Discover the rich natural and cultural features of this incredible trail. Enjoy this fun and adventurous learning quest! We challenge you to find all 8 in the series. To learn more, visit www.ctwoodlands.org.
Park on the edge of the street and walk ahead to the bridge spanning East River. East River flows in a southerly direction from the Guilford Lakes before emptying into Guilford Harbor and Long Island Sound, and supports nearly 1,000 acres of biologically-rich intertidal marshland (meaning that it is subject to flooding during high tides).
Cross the bridge and turn to the right onto the Menunkatuck section of the New England Trail (NET), blazed with blue rectangles. Enjoy views of the water on your right as the trail follows the direction of the river.
Follow the NET, eventually coming to the edge of an open field. When trees are not in full foliage (leafed out), you can experience multiple several views of the river along the trail here. One view looks out at a bend, or meander, in the river. River and stream channels are always evolving as they adjust to varying levels of water flow and sediment load. Meanders, like this one here, are caused by the complementary actions of erosion and deposition. As water flows around a bend like this one, the velocity of the river flow increases towards the outside bend and decreases near the inside bend. The higher speed of the flowing water on the outside bend causes the erosion of the outside bank, thus enlarging the river channel on that side. Slower flowing water on the inside of the bend causes the opposite there, namely the deposition, or dumping, of suspended sediment carried by the river, and thereby results in the formation of point bars and a general “building up” of the inside bend. Over time, this process causes the river channel to migrate laterally across its floodplain. At this meander, you can see an approximately 2 acre intertidal freshwater marsh next to the inside bend of the river. Home to rich groups of plants and wildlife, marshes like this one provide crucial habitats. In fact, this particular expanse of marsh has been indentified by the State of Connecticut as a critical habitat, a rare and specialized home for wildlife where they find food, water, and shelter.
Continue along the trail and follow the blazes around the outside edge of the field. After a few turns enter the woods. Cross the bridge and follow the trail as it turns up the hill. Keep following the blue blazes. The terrain here is rugged and rocky. See any wildlife? Keep your eyes out for animals, or their tracks and scat, especially near any water sources. White-tailed deer, for instance, are quite numerous in this area. Their tracks are easily identified by having two teardrop-shaped halves that together roughly resemble an upside-down heart, and may be approximately 1.5-3.5 inches long. In some areas of our state, deer populations have reached levels of overabundance due in part to their adaptation to modern suburban landscapes and a lack of major predators, which included gray wolves and cougars hundreds of years ago in Connecticut. Numerous ecological effects can result when population densities of deer are too high, including changes in forest structure and tree composition (tree seedlings and young saplings are a common foraging food), and increases in nonnative species (some invasive species such as Japanese barberry are not usually eaten by deer).
When you arrive at the junction of the NET and a green-blazed trail, bear toward the left onto the green-blazed trail. At first the intermittent stream will be on your right and the trail will go downhill slightly before leveling out. After a short distance the trail climbs away to the left up a short hill. At the top you’ll see a bunch of large gray rocks and boulders, and the green blazes will indicate a left turn. Follow the green blazes and turn sharply to the left, and then walk straight for a short distance. Stay on the green trail as it turns approximately 90° to the right. Start uphill. Now you’re getting close! When you get to the very top, STOP! Don’t go down the very short downhill stretch in front of you. Just ahead you’ll see a green blaze painted on a smooth-barked beech tree to the right of the trail. Turn 90° to your left. You should be roughly facing a sturdy tree (a red oak, in fact) with a trunk approximately 14” in diameter just off the edge of the trail. Just behind the tree is a large rock. Look around the base of the rock for the letterbox. Congratulations, nice work!
After stamping in and re-hiding the letterbox, turn back to the green-blazed trail in the direction from which you came. Turn right at the blue-blaze to get back on the NET. Finish your hike by retracing your steps via the blue-blazed NET back to your car, which would entail a round-trip distance of approximately two miles.
Hike length: 1-2 miles
Total Distance: Approximately 2 miles
Start at Foote Bridge Rd/Bearhouse Hill Rd in Guilford, CT. Note: The name of this road varies by source; it’s called Foote Bridge Rd by Google Maps and Bing Maps, while the physical street sign displays Bearhouse Hill Rd. Either way, it is a short dead-end street off of Goose Ln, approximately 0.3 miles southeast of the Goose Ln-Sullivan Dr junction.
Google Maps Directions: https://goo.gl/lW3mht
The 8-part New England Trail Letterboxing Series was created by Connecticut’s oldest non-profit conservation organization, the Connecticut Forest & Park Association (CFPA). Grab your gear and get ready to experience one of America’s national scenic trails right here in your own backyard. Discover the rich natural and cultural features of this incredible trail. Enjoy this fun and adventurous learning quest! We challenge you to find all 8 in the series. To learn more, visit www.ctwoodlands.org.
Park on the edge of the street and walk ahead to the bridge spanning East River. East River flows in a southerly direction from the Guilford Lakes before emptying into Guilford Harbor and Long Island Sound, and supports nearly 1,000 acres of biologically-rich intertidal marshland (meaning that it is subject to flooding during high tides).
Cross the bridge and turn to the right onto the Menunkatuck section of the New England Trail (NET), blazed with blue rectangles. Enjoy views of the water on your right as the trail follows the direction of the river.
Follow the NET, eventually coming to the edge of an open field. When trees are not in full foliage (leafed out), you can experience multiple several views of the river along the trail here. One view looks out at a bend, or meander, in the river. River and stream channels are always evolving as they adjust to varying levels of water flow and sediment load. Meanders, like this one here, are caused by the complementary actions of erosion and deposition. As water flows around a bend like this one, the velocity of the river flow increases towards the outside bend and decreases near the inside bend. The higher speed of the flowing water on the outside bend causes the erosion of the outside bank, thus enlarging the river channel on that side. Slower flowing water on the inside of the bend causes the opposite there, namely the deposition, or dumping, of suspended sediment carried by the river, and thereby results in the formation of point bars and a general “building up” of the inside bend. Over time, this process causes the river channel to migrate laterally across its floodplain. At this meander, you can see an approximately 2 acre intertidal freshwater marsh next to the inside bend of the river. Home to rich groups of plants and wildlife, marshes like this one provide crucial habitats. In fact, this particular expanse of marsh has been indentified by the State of Connecticut as a critical habitat, a rare and specialized home for wildlife where they find food, water, and shelter.
Continue along the trail and follow the blazes around the outside edge of the field. After a few turns enter the woods. Cross the bridge and follow the trail as it turns up the hill. Keep following the blue blazes. The terrain here is rugged and rocky. See any wildlife? Keep your eyes out for animals, or their tracks and scat, especially near any water sources. White-tailed deer, for instance, are quite numerous in this area. Their tracks are easily identified by having two teardrop-shaped halves that together roughly resemble an upside-down heart, and may be approximately 1.5-3.5 inches long. In some areas of our state, deer populations have reached levels of overabundance due in part to their adaptation to modern suburban landscapes and a lack of major predators, which included gray wolves and cougars hundreds of years ago in Connecticut. Numerous ecological effects can result when population densities of deer are too high, including changes in forest structure and tree composition (tree seedlings and young saplings are a common foraging food), and increases in nonnative species (some invasive species such as Japanese barberry are not usually eaten by deer).
When you arrive at the junction of the NET and a green-blazed trail, bear toward the left onto the green-blazed trail. At first the intermittent stream will be on your right and the trail will go downhill slightly before leveling out. After a short distance the trail climbs away to the left up a short hill. At the top you’ll see a bunch of large gray rocks and boulders, and the green blazes will indicate a left turn. Follow the green blazes and turn sharply to the left, and then walk straight for a short distance. Stay on the green trail as it turns approximately 90° to the right. Start uphill. Now you’re getting close! When you get to the very top, STOP! Don’t go down the very short downhill stretch in front of you. Just ahead you’ll see a green blaze painted on a smooth-barked beech tree to the right of the trail. Turn 90° to your left. You should be roughly facing a sturdy tree (a red oak, in fact) with a trunk approximately 14” in diameter just off the edge of the trail. Just behind the tree is a large rock. Look around the base of the rock for the letterbox. Congratulations, nice work!
After stamping in and re-hiding the letterbox, turn back to the green-blazed trail in the direction from which you came. Turn right at the blue-blaze to get back on the NET. Finish your hike by retracing your steps via the blue-blazed NET back to your car, which would entail a round-trip distance of approximately two miles.
Hike length: 1-2 miles