ABOUT THE PARKS:
Tarrywile Park
Ives Trail Brochure - Western Connecticut Council of Governments
Ives Trail Greenway - Western Connecticut Council of Governments
Patch Award for Hiking the Entire Trail - Western Connecticut Council of Governments
DIRECTIONS:
GPS Coordinates 41.380634, -73.453590
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| Tarrywile Trail Parkinjg |
TRAIL MAPS:
Tarrywile Park Map
Ives Trail Map - Western Connecticut Council of Governments (outdated)
Ives Trail Map - Avenza App (updated)
See notes at the end about trails shown on the online map that no longer exist.
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| The Tarrywile map does not show which trails are also the Ives Trail so I have highlighted that in purple with green the route to the Ives Trail from the parking lot. |
HIKE DISTANCE: 9.6 miles
THE HIKE:
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| There are no trails signs visible from the parking lot so it's a little confusing where to start. Take the road beyond the gates ... |
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| ... heading towards the red silo. |
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| Continue on to Parks Pond where you run into the Ives Trail. We would be coming back from the left, turning right here. |
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| Ives Trail markers at Parks Pond. |
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| The Ives Trail will follow along with the blue-blazed park trail for a while. |
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| Passing the water tank. |
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| Now the trail becomes more rugged. |
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| Turning around for a view from behind. |
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| Approaching Back Pond. |
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| Back Pond |
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| A yellow trail starts to the right to Mootry Peak but we'd end up there also staying left with the Ives/blue trail. |
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| Starting to ascend Thomas Mountain. |
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| The Ives Tail turns right now joining the other end of that yellow trail. |
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| Crossing that little bridge I noticed some wet prints that were not ours. Apparently a critter had just been in the water and crossed over right before we got there. |
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| Going up steeply. |
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| At the top the Ives Trail turns left but a short side trail to the right ... |
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| ... leads to Mootry Peak Lookout. |
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| The Beacon. From this point the Ives Trail leaves the blazed Tarrywile Park trails and will now only have Ives Trail markers. |
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| Car #1 along the way. |
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| Brodie is a little confused by the interior. Exactly where is he supposed to sit? |
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| Car #2 nearby. |
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| Where the Ives Trail turns right at the three blue circles there is an unmarked trail straight ahead. I'd be going that way after Moses Mountain. For now, right on the Ives Trail. |
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| Having descended Thomas Mountain, Moses Mountain up ahead. Fortunately we did not have to climb up those boulders. |
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| The trail turns right and switchbacks up to the right of all of those boulders. |
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| The waypoint on the left is where I needed to go. |
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| And here we are, actually have overshot a bit. |
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| Heading back down. |
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| And back up Thomas Mountain |
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| Here we turned right on that unmarked trail ... |
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| ... which occasionally has very faded old blue blazes. |
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| It's easy enough to follow and appears to be used. |
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| Coming up on a pond which is posted so it's off limits. |
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| And here we run straight into the eastern side of the Ives Trail. Left would take us back to the parking lot but I turned right first to hike enough of the trail so there would be one day hike worth to finish up at another time. |
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| This stretch of trail goes behind some homes. |
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| I noticed a spur trail off to the right. I'd be checking that out on the return route as it is not on the map and I was curious about where it would go. |
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| The trail turns right on muddy, rutted dirt road that apparently sees a lot of ATV and dirt bike traffic. Although I could hear them nearby, none passed us. |
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| Once the woods road become more of a trail and less of a woods road, we took a break on this rock before heading back. |
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| Returning the way we came. |
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| The Ives Trail leaves the dirt road at the yellow sign to the left. |
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| Back at that spur trail, we turned left to investigate. |
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| Oh boy, STEEP! There is a rope which was needed at the top and the whole time I was hoping I would not have to go back down. This might not have been such a good idea. |
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| Fortunately, at the top the spur trail ran right into the Ives Trail. All it did was cut off a bend to the right so here we turned left to continue on. |
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| We had come in from the left off of that unmarked trail, now staying with the Ives Trail to the right. |
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| Back into Tarrywile Park joining in with the blue trail. |
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| Coming up on Parks Pond. |
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| Along the eastern side of Parks Pond the Ives Trail following the white-blazed trail. |
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| At the other end of the pond heading towards the kiosk where we first picked up the Ives Trail. |
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| Back towards the red silo. |
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| Balloons #7 - #10 of the year. |
TRAIL SECTION THAT NO LONGER EXISTS:
I had originally planned on parking near the Ives House and approaching Tarrywile Park that way so I could capture all of the Ives Trail as shown on the online map. I found parking about a block away at a neighborhood park.
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| Just as I had expected, a blaze and opening at the end of the sidewalk on Mountainville Road. |
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| But we ended up on a mushy trail that apparently had not been used in a long time with blow downs blocking the way. I saw a kiosk and hacked my way over to it. |
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| This kiosk contained a very outdated Ives Trail map and there were no more trail markers to be seen. I checked the Avenza app map to find that the trails on the online map were no longer included so this part apparently exists no more. |
So I abandoned this start to the hike and drove over to the Tarrywile parking lot.
