Wolcott History – Hiking in Wolcott – Part 1

This is the first of a three part blog about hiking trails in Wolcott.  When I was growing up, the term “helicopter parenting” had not yet been invented and everyone was what would now be termed raised in a “free range” parenting style.  As such, my roaming territory started out in just my neighborhood, but eventually, especially after I bought a bicycle, was the entire town of Wolcott.  I had personally ridden on every street in the town and I had hiked all the trails in town.  A lot of hiking places from back then no longer exist, so I’ll confine myself in my blog to those places that are still available.

There are three trail sections in town that are registered with the Connecticut Forest and Park Association – the organization that maintains the “Blue Trails” in the state.  My grandfather helped to maintain many of these Blue Trails back in the 1950’s and 1960’s, but that’s another story.  You can find all the current trails on the CFPA website (http://ctwoodlands.org/blue-blazed-hiking-trails/blue-blazed-hiking-trails-interactive-map).  Just zoom in to Wolcott.

The most recent of these was just added to the list of trails last year and is the Finch Brook Preserve Trail which is on property that is owned by the Wolcott Land Conservation Trust.  You can find more information here (http://www.wolcottlandct.org/preserves/finch-brook-preserve/finch-brook-preserve-trail-map/)  I’m not going to discuss this any further as I have not hiked it myself, but it’s a 2.5 mile closed loop trail and I’m told that it’s a nice walk.

I’ll discuss the other two trail sections separately in their own blog entries.

Note that there are lots of other nice trails to hike in Connecticut, but I’m only going to talk about the ones that are at least partly in Wolcott.