E - Emery Park Leonard Mountain Trail, Kent, CT

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

E - Emery Park: Leonard Mountain Trail, Kent, CT

I got a bit of a late start today! I decided to climb what I thought was Segar Mountain first! Looking at a topo map though, it turns out the trail ascends Leonard Mountain - which is actually a little bit taller than Segar Mountain!

I drive past Emery Park every day on the way to and from work, but I've never stopped. I've heard they have a "natural" pool that's fed by a spring, and that it frequently gets water snakes and other "natural" neighbors. There is a trail that is "well-marked" (more on that later) and maintained by the Kent Parks and Recreation department.
 
Once I found the trail-head, which crossed a nice creek, I started up. It seemed rather pleasant at first, crossing an open meadow with the sun shining, before heading up into the woods for the ascent up the mountain. There was a kiosk with the phone number? for the parks and rec department, and a few tree identification trail signs that had fallen off their trees. No map, but that's okay (more on that later). The book I had said green and silver trail markers, but they were blue and silver: oh well!

The trail was rather overgrown, which made me go into "tick mode," tucking my pants into my socks, and remembering to do a thorough tick check at the end.

Tall grass, but it must be tough to get a mower up there!

Maple-Leaf Viburnum in bloom

There was no doubt that this trail was a mountain trail! There were very few sections of level ground; the pitch was a steady 45 degrees for most of the way! 

The Kent Hiking Trails book explained that there was a "barely discernible" side trail blazed with yellow that led to a stand of 300-year-old sugar maples, about half-way up. I must have missed it, but towards what I presumed to be the summit, there were two yellow-marked trails. The first trail I followed led to a partially-obstructed overlook of the village of Kent.

If you look closely, you can see Kent Center School!

 The second yellow "spur" trail led to an area of overgrowth, and a tree with two trail markers on it. Was this the summit???

 

 I looked around for a while, but couldn't see any signs of where the trailed continued. There were no more blue trail markers to be found, only yellow.  This part of the trail didn't seem to be recently maintained. There was a large, downed hemlock that I had to do a bit of "pickin' and a grinnin' " to get around. 

I decided I would call this the summit, so I sat down to have a refuel of some water and the banana that I had brought. When, noooooooooo! 3/4 of the banana broke off and plummeted to the ground! I ate what little remained, and left the rest for a lucky scavenger.

Me and a "gnarly" tree near the "summit?"

Back down the trail! This proved quick, but potentially dangerous. Gravity did most of the work, but there were some slick spots with lots of loose leaf litter. Some trekking poles would have been useful!

After checking out the spring-fed pool (very "natural" looking); I headed back to the car for some trail mix and air conditioning before the next hike.

Thanks for the advice, E.T.???

Notable Sightings:

• Eastern Phoebe (heard)
• Black-capped Chickadee (heard)
• Black-and-white Warblers (heard)
• Black-throated Green Warblers (heard)
• Eastern Wood-Pewee (heard)
• White-tailed Deer
• Sensitive Fern 

  

  Sensitive Fern