Fall arrived in New Haven this past week. It suddenly was much cooler and the trees started changing. The week ended with a big wind and rain storm on Saturday, so most of the pretty leaves are gone now. My camera is spending a few days in Puerto Rico with my wife right now, so I've done the best I could to capture some images with the cell phone camera (see the note at the beginning of this post).
First, a couple of pictures from around New Haven. The first couple are trees I passed while walking to work on Friday (10/24).
I also walked home from work that day. (It was a nice day and I hadn't gone for a run that morning, so could use the exercise.)
If you squint really hard, you can see West Rock in the distance on this one.
The West River looking north into Memorial Park in West Haven.
The cemetery was looking really nice.Pictures from my phone (above and below) do it no justice whatsoever.
Another neighborhood tree in New Haven.The Sleeping Giant
A few miles north of New Haven, there is a series of ridges that, especially when viewed from the south, looks a lot like a giant man lying on his back. This series of ridges make up Sleeping Giant State Park. In an attempt to get some better pictures of fall color and for something to do while my wife was sitting on a beach in Puerto Rico, I took a hike in the wind and threatening rain. Luckily, the heavy rain held off until well after I got home.
A few miles north of New Haven, there is a series of ridges that, especially when viewed from the south, looks a lot like a giant man lying on his back. This series of ridges make up Sleeping Giant State Park. In an attempt to get some better pictures of fall color and for something to do while my wife was sitting on a beach in Puerto Rico, I took a hike in the wind and threatening rain. Luckily, the heavy rain held off until well after I got home.
The trail I chose to start out on was wide and well-maintained. Notice how there is little-to-no undergrowth in the forest. That's typical of forests around here.
This escarpment is the giant's chin. I intended to get up onto that chin before the day was over, but I got a little lost and didn't make it up there this time. That just gives me more motivation to head back up there someday soon, maybe even with my wife in tow. :-)
This tower sits on one of the giant's hips. The well-maintained wide trail ended here. I elected to take a different trail back since that other trail was supposed to take me up onto the giant's head before heading back down to the parking area. First, however, I climbed up in the tower to get some views of the surrounding countryside.
If you look very closely at the horizon in the third picture, you can see some tall buildings. That is New Haven. To the left of New Haven is another ridge. That's East Rock. East Rock and West Rock (mentioned way above) are both basalt ridges like those that make up the Sleeping Giant, but they lie right around New Haven itself. (East Rock is much closer to downtown New Haven than it looks in this picture.) I don't know who came up with those amazingly creative names.
The entire point of this picture is to show just how windy it was. Notice, please, that all of the leaves are blowing to the right. (I know, it's hard to tell, but humor me.)
The paint spot on this tree tells me that I am following one of the trails. There are places in the park where the only way you can tell you're on a trail is by following the marks on the trees or, if you're climbing practically straight up and can't see the trees, they are often kind enough to paint the marks on the rocks. The lack of undergrowth in the forest makes it very easy to wander off of the trail without even realizing it. The mark on this tree is blue even though it looks white in the picture. It tells me I'm on the blue trail. Somewhere along the line, however, the marks really did become white so I obviously missed a turn on the blue trail. The blue trail is the one that takes you up onto the giant's head. The white trail, on the other hand, goes up onto the giant's chest.
You do get a good view of the chin from the giant's chest, but this view told me for sure I had gone the wrong way. After staring at the map for a long time, I figured out where I had gone wrong, but I decided to continue along the white trail anyway.
Quinnipiac University is literally right across the street from the giant. It's not even a particularly wide street--just a two lane rural road lies between the campus and the park. This view is from the giant's shoulder as I prepared to begin the descent.
Just after taking the picture of the university campus, I found all the autumn colors you could possibly want in each leaf of this tree. I gazed upon this glorious delight in wonderment for many hours (or maybe it was only a minute or two), then began the descent.
And a steep descent it was. This portion of the trail (note the white mark on the tree--this is the trail) was almost literally straight down. This was not a hike for the faint of heart.
And the leaves covered the rocks like a carpet, so you couldn't always trust your footing. This part of the hike was not all that enjoyable, to be honest. (But at least the ground was pretty while it was trying to kill you.)
After consulting the trail map a couple more times and once taking 5 or 6 steps down a stream bed instead of along a trail (they looked the same and I'd been watching my footing when the marks on a nearby tree indicated a turn), I found a safe route back to the car, and was able to make the drive back home.
(Don't worry, I stopped the car to take the picture, and there was no one behind me on the road--I checked.)
