Castle Crag

This weekend we hiked a portion of the Metacomet Trail in Meriden up to Castle Crag and West peak. We parked on the side of Route 71 where the trail crosses the road. After some initial confusion about who had the map, we headed up the hill to the west. At the top of the ridge we crossed the dam at the end of a small reservoir. The trail headed back into the woods where it became a road of ankle turning turning. Fortunately this didn't last too long and then we broke out onto the dam of a much larger reservoir. This one formed in a gap in the Hanging Hills with nice cliffs on both banks.

Shortly after crossing the dam we turned into the woods and began our climb up to the hanging hills. Eventually. First we had to cross a number of drainages which meant a lot of up and down. Finally we reached a very step pitch which did begin the climb up to the ridge. The trail climbed steeply at first and then more gradually. Eventually it swung east and hugged the cliffs overlooking the reservoir. Nice view of the island and a hawk circling below us.

The trail continues up along the cliffs until it reaches Castle Crag. Which is indeed a small crenelated tower. I had seen this for years while driving on I-691 and always wondered what it was. The tower was built by Walter Hubbard and donated to the town along with the 1800 acre Hubbard Park which surrounds it. It was a nice clear cold day so we had good views of LI sound, Hartford and up into Massachusetts from the top of the tower. Town workmen were hanging holiday lights and told us they would be closing off the tower later that day.

We continued to follow the Metacomet along the ridge. Eventually it rejoined the park road and became quite rough as the road took the good terrain.

Suddenly the trail turned away from the road and steeply downhill. This was a bit disappointing as we were obviously pretty close to west peak at this point.

After a steep rocky descent we reached an old woods road on a shelf below the cliffs. We followed this for no more than 50 feet when the trail diverged to the right and began to climb again. This climb was much more gradual and well graded. It wrapped around the west side of the summit and emerged through Cathole pass. The pass is pretty impressive which is why I imagine the trail goes this way. The trail eventually hits the parking area right near the summit. It would be a nice place with good views if it wasn't for all of the electronics towers. I hope nothing important got fried while wandered around looking for a view between the buildings, towers and trash.

From there we followed the park road back down to the reservoir. Much faster going although quite hard on the feet. From the reservoir we retraced our path to the car.

The 50 Hikes in CT lists it as 6.4 miles and it took us just under 4 hours. Nice hike although I might be tempted to skip West Peak in the future.