Appalachian Trail, CT - Lions Head and Bear Mountain

ABOUT THE PARK: 

The Appalachian Trail in Connecticut - Appalachian Trail Conservancy

DIRECTIONS: 

GPS Coordinates 41.99892, -73.43774

Bunker Hill Parking Lot at the Lions Head Connector Trail.  Room for about 8 cars.  On weekends the lot fills up fast and cars are parked up and down Bunker Hill Road.

TRAIL MAP: 

South Taconic Trails - New York New Jersey Trail Conference

HIKE DISTANCE:  12.7 miles

The planned hike was 10.2 miles but adjustments needed to be made to avoid a difficult scramble that would not have been doable with Brodie.

THE HIKE: 

The trail starts opposite the parking lot entrance.

Just around the kiosk ...

... a nice Connecticut countryside view, much better in person than in this picture.

This is a blue-blazed connector trail that leads to the AT in .8 miles, .2 miles before Lions Head.

The trail crosses over Bunker Hill Road which is a private road at this point.

The Appalachian Trail comes in from the right.

In a little under a quarter mile the AT turns right.  Straight ahead is a blue bypass trail but why when you are so close?

It's a steep climb up the rest of the way but never a scramble.

Views at Lion's Head.

A gentler descent off of Lion's Head ...

... to a view of our destination straight ahead:  Bear Mountain, the highest point in Connecticut.

Continuing north on the AT for the next 2.5 miles.

At Riga Junction I had to make a decision.  This is where the climb up Bear Mountain begins.  There is a difficult scramble the other side of Bear Mountain which is supposed to be easier going up rather than going down.  Should I take the 3-mile loop around Bear Mountain, get to the other side and not be able to get to the top with Brodie, risking not getting to the top at all?  I asked a man who was coming down from Bear Mountain and he felt I would be better off avoiding that scramble with Brodie.  So decision made - continuing north on the AT to summit Bear Mountain.  We would be back at this intersection two more times over the course of this hike.

It's a rocky climb that gets steeper as you get higher but it was never a scramble heading this way.

This guy hopped along side of me for a few steps.  A bit later a gorgeous small green snake slithered across the trail in front of me but he was too fast for a picture.

At the summit, you need to climb up these rocks for the view.

I had tethered Brodie to a tree in the shade where he waited patiently.  The man on the right is an AT thru hiker from Oklahoma.  The woman on the left lives just blocks from where I used to live in St. Louis 40 years ago.  She was highpointing - visiting the high point of every state.  And here she is at the high point of Connecticut.

A view from the back of the stone viewing structure.

Retracing back down the way we came, the views are gorgeous.

Back at Riga Junction, if I were to have continued to retrace back to the beginning of the hike, it would have only been an 8-mile hike, having done the summit as an out-and-back.  I did not want to shorten this hike, especially on this gorgeous, dry, breezy75-degree day!  Doing the full loop around Bear Mountain would add about 2.5 miles.  OK, decision made - longer version it was so we tuned right on the unmarked Bear Mountain Road.

This was a welcome change from the more rugged trails - smooth and flat all the way!

There were a couple of seriously flooded out sections but I was able to rock hop them without getting wet.

At the end ...

... right on gravel Mount Washington Road for a short distance to ...

... right through the next parking lot to ...

... unmarked Northwest Road.

At this intersection, that intense scramble up Bear Mountain is to the right.  We turned left a short distance to the Sages Ravine sign ...

... where we turned right on blue Paradise Lane.

There is Bear Mountain that we are now looping around.

In 2.1 miles Paradise Lane ends and we turned right on Under Mountain Trail.

Back at Riga Junction, we now turned left to retrace all the way back on the AT.

Climbing back up Lions Head.

The blue bypass trail is to the right but we were almost at the top and the sun was in a better position than early in the morning to we stayed left to visit Lions Head again.

Definitely better lighting for better pictures.

How the heck did that little guy get way up here into that puddle?

It's steep descending the way we had come up originally and it took some time but we made it down.

The Appalachian Trail goes left and we continued straight on blue back to Bunker Hill Road.

Last ones in the lot at 5:30 PM.