CT: Fairfield County- Housatonic Rail-Trail – Trumbull (Pequannock Valley Greenway)

I found this trail when walking around at lunch when I first started working in Trumbull, CT in 2016. As a born and bread NYC gal I had not discovered all CT had to offer until I had already lived here for over 20 years.

Soon thereafter I rediscovered my love of biking and this is one of the first trails I travelled. The full trail is from Bridgeport to Newtown but is divided into segments with needs to go into the roads on occasion.

I often start this trail on or about Twin Brooks park in Trumbull off of Brock Street. Note you can not park here without a resident sticker all year round so I often park nearby and bike through. It’s a beautiful picturesque park with ponds, bridges, hiking trails and wildflowers. Here’s a peek of the park but it deserves its own write up at another time. It is a multi seasonal venue.

In order to connect to the next section of the Pequannock trail you can bike through the park into a small residential neighborhood ultimately to Tait Road.

There is a trail head with trail parking at Tait Road and White Plains Road. It is across from a newly built (as of Fall 2020) CVS and Starbucks. The trail is paved in areas or lightly stone dusted.

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There are various segments of the Housatonic Railway trail. This blog is about the Pequonnock Valley Greenway which follows the namesake river for about 3 miles – a lovely and manageable walk or flat bike ride.

The trail travels along the river which I had previously known but had overlooked until this ride the opportunities to walk down to the water. Pay attention to where this is permitted versus private property areas.

There is generally a wooden picket fence along the trail from which you can see the river below. If you ride too quickly you might otherwise overlook the occasional opening beckoning you to hike to the water.

On this abbreviated afternoon workday ride I almost rode by to get to the end of this segment of the greenway. Fortunately I’ve trained myself to know better.

I lost my sense of time in my attempt to capture the calm of the colors, the scent of the trees, the sound and trickling of the water as it babbled over the rocks.

On this day I had also received a package of a crystal orb with which to try some photographing techniques. I learned of ways to capture the colors and their reflections in the sun setting stream of light both within the orb and in the distance. The glow behind the red leaf set on top of the green moss on the rock added an element of mystery.

The time was short but the memories everlasting and yet there is so much more rail trail to discover as the Pequonnock River Trail segments together total 13.6 miles.

In reviewing the trail map for this blog, I also see that there are several points of interests noted. I sincerely can’t wait for the next adventure on this trail to pause and pivot down to the water in the next segment, Parlor Rock, and seek out the various features recommended on the map! Huge lesson learned for me is to locate these maps ahead of time so as not to miss out on additional opportunities to locate these natural gifts and be present.

I found this link to details of how to get to each of the segments of the trail as well as a trail map with the points of interest.

https://bikeitorhikeit.org/pequonnock_river_trail.htm