One trail, 14 miles, three towns, only three road crossings
The driving route from Preston to Groton follows busy roads that pass housing developments, shopping centers, apartment complexes, municipal offices and a highway interchange.
But what if you could ditch the car, lace up hiking boots and gambol over a 14-mile trail through lush forests, beside a tumbling brook, and along evergreen-lined reservoirs, while crossing only three paved surfaces?
David Holdridge of Ledyard has posed that question for more than a decade, pitching his proposal for a Tri-Town Trail to local officials, state authorities, environmental organizations and anyone else who would listen.
Almost all have responded enthusiastically to the idea — except for Groton Utilities, owned by the City of Groton, which for years steadfastly opposed any public access to its reservoir properties in Groton and Ledyard.
But lately, this resistance has faded, and city officials are planning to meet soon with backers of a footpath that would connect Bluff Point Coastal Reserve in Groton with Preston Community Park, just north of the Ledyard border at the intersection of Route 117 and Route 2A.
“The door is open for talks,” Groton City Mayor Keith Hedrick said in a telephone interview this week. Hedrick added that while he supports the idea of a public trail, his first priority is to protect the reservoir.
Hedrick said that he has asked Utilities Director Ronald A. Gaudet to arrange for a meeting with representatives of the Tri-Town Trail Association, and expressed hope that some agreement on access to reservoir properties can be reached. Discussions between the parties proved unfruitful during their last meeting in 2011.
Town Councilor Aundré Bumgardner defeated Hedrick by five votes in a Democratic mayoral primary March 8. Asked if he is considering running in the May general election as a write-in candidate, Hedrick would
only say that he and his wife are taking time to think over their options.
Bumgardner is viewed as a strong environmental advocate, so either way, trail supporters are encouraged.
“I'm very optimistic,” Holdridge, a former Ledyard town councilor who served as the trail association's first president, said last week.
Karen Parkinson, now the association president, agreed that momentum is finally building to complete the trail, which so far stretches for about two miles into Ledyard from its northern terminus in Preston.
Asked when she thought the entire path would be completed, she replied with a laugh, “Hopefully, in my lifetime!” Parkinson, a spry 81-year-old, joined a band of trail enthusiasts during a hike of nearly five miles last week.
Maggie Jones, director emeritus of the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center in Mystic, who has accompanied our small hiking group on dozens of sojourns over the past year, was making her first visit to the Ledyard section of the Tri-Town Trail. She said the “feeling of remoteness to this suburban forest” underscored the importance of establishing a connected footpath.
“I am all for towns working together to link trails and open spaces. Plants, birds and other animals don't care about property ownership or political boundaries. They need places and spaces that provide suitable habitat for survival,” Maggie said.
Ledyard Town Councilor Andra Ingalls, who joined last week's hike, called the trail “a win for every community it touches.”
The trail enters fields on the south side of Route 117, directly across the street from Preston Community Park. A flock of bluebirds flitted around the meadow edge as we strolled past. In a short while, after our group meandered through a red maple swamp, we heard a woodcock call. A red-shouldered hawk circled overhead, while the distinctive “Peter-Peter” song of the titmouse resonated through the woodland.
Maggie then pointed out a mixed flock of birds — chickadees, titmice, cardinals, nuthatches — foraging in the treetops near Joe Clark Brook. Joe Clark's ancestors farmed this land in the 1700s; his son, J. Alfred Clark, who served as mayor of Ledyard from 1975 to 1983, sold the 102-acre farm to the Mashantucket Pequot tribe after the opening of Foxwoods Resort Casino in 1992.
The tribe and town of Ledyard then agreed to a land swap in 2007, in which the Mashantuckets acquired 76.8-acre Indiantown Park, adjacent to its reservation, and the town obtained the old Clark Farm, through which the trail now passes.
The nearby Spicer Farm traces its roots even further back, to the 1600s. We hiked past Spicer Ledge, as well as an enormous boulder, Spicer Rock, where the family once held annual reunions.
We later came upon an ice-covered vernal pool. Looking closely, we noticed fairy shrimp, wood frogs and tiny tadpoles of marbled salamander swimming beneath the frozen surface. Rain will call spotted salamanders and other amphibians to this breeding pool.
“Marbled and spotted salamanders are mole salamanders, a long-lived (up to 25 years) species that return to the same pool year after year to mate. Lacking fish and other aquatic predators, if all goes well, their young will hatch and develop before such seasonal pools dry up in early summer,” Maggie noted.
A section of trail runs along a steep hillside, through which water percolates out of the rocky ground to form seasonal streams and rivulets.
“That's something we didn't expect,” said Chad Frost, a principal with Kent + Frost Landscape Architecture in Mystic, whose master plan for the trail, drawn up in 2009, continues to evolve.
Normally, such hillsides are relatively dry, but a wetlands survey identified 14 such rivulets that will each require a bridge. The trail association has enlisted the support of
Scout groups to build some of these wooden spans, and is seeking more volunteers to construct the rest.
Frost said the process of designing any trail begins with the simple goal of getting from Point A to Point B, which gets increasingly complex when it comes to securing rights of way, as well as avoiding wetlands, streams, steep slopes and other impediments.
“You wind up looking for the path of least resistance,” he said.
The final route will depend on how discussions proceed with utilities officials, as well as easement negotiations with some 10 other property owners.
As proposed, the trail would continue south beyond the existing Phase One section, pass the Morgan Pond and Ledyard reservoirs, cross Route 184, pick up existing trails at the Copp Family Park in Groton, pass beneath I-95 on Route 117, follow Groton Reservoir property toward Route 1, and finally access Bluff Point via an existing boardwalk along the
Poquonnock River.
The serene reservoir properties, which include 300 acres in Groton and Ledyard, are the key to this route. It's understandable that the City of Groton would be protective of such a treasured resource, but numerous national studies have found hiker access actually reduces litter and vandalism. The Kent + Frost master plan also reported that nearly half the municipalities that own reservoirs in Connecticut allow recreational access to their properties.
All of us who enjoy hiking owe a debt of gratitude to the town of Ledyard, for offering tax abatements to property owners who grant trail easements, and to the Tri-Town Trail Association for its determination and hard work to establish what eventually could become one of the region's signature walkways.