Mattatuck Tr - Southern end

Louise and I decided to hike the southern most section of the Mattatuck Trail today. It was pretty cool (teens to twenties) and there were a couple of inches of crusty snow on the ground. The southern terminus is in Petersen Memorial Park in Wolcott.



Our plan was to hike to Wolcott Rd and then do the roadwalk back to the park.



The trail initially follows the Mad River and is very pretty. It looks like it also might be quite wet at times. Fortunately it was mostly frozen for us.



The trail eventually leaves the river, crosses a power line cut and then climbs up to an area that looks like it has views off the the right. However this turns out to just be the town transfer station. We had a nice lunch at the height of land before dropping down to Spindle Hill Rd (notice the stove, nice hot noodles for lunch, yum).



At Spindle Hill Rd Louise decided she'd had enough fun so she did the road walk back to the car and I continued on to Marino Pond.
The trail initially climbs back up to ridge and then cuts behind one of the local McMansions. It looks like it gets pretty wet in here too. Eventually the trail goes through a modest ravine which had some very nice icicles.



The trail then wrapped around to another cleft on which side was Indian Jack's cave (seen below)

From here the trail climbs to the ridge. There is a short side trail to a nice view. Not much to see today, but probably very pretty in the fall.

From the the trail trends mostly downhill to Marino Pond where Louise was waiting.

The hike was 3.6 miles with the side trail and took 2:45 including a relaxed lunch. Probably a bit slow due to the crunchy snow.