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◂︎ Mandy & Lexi's Connecticut Adventures
Middlebury
Hop Brook Lake
Recreation Area
Date visited: 4/10/2021
Hop Brook Lake Recreation Area is a park situated on the corner of Middlebury, Waterbury and Naugatuck. The entrance to the park and one side of the lake are in Middlebury. The park includes picnic areas, hiking trails and swimming beach on the Waterbury side of the lake.
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Larkin
Bridle Trail
Date visited: 11/6/2021
See Also: Naugatuck, Middlebury, Oxford, Southbury
We crossed into Middlebury after completing the Naugatuck section of the trail. We covered the first half mile or so in Middlebury on our first trip here. The highlight was the section through the rock cut-outs.
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Middlebury Greenway
Dates visited: 1/7/2023, 1/14/2023 & 1/22/2023
This is a paved bike trail that pretty much crosses the town of Middlebury running along side Route 64. I'm not a huge fan of trails that run right along side busy roads like this one, but this one still has some scenic spots. It is also unusually hilly for a rail trail. The trail is built on an old trolley line that ran between Waterbury and Woodbury, with Middlebury in the middle. On our first visit, we started on the west end of the trail near Quassy Baseball Field and walked the trail until we reached Meadowview Park. We took some detours. At the start of the trail we crossed the street and checked out the parking lot of Quassy Amusement Park. Besides Meadowview Park, the trail also connects to Largay Nature Preserve, and we checked out both those places as well. I like paved trails this time of the year. Regular trails can be very wet and muddy, especially with all the rain we've had lately. There's much more of this trail to explore in the future.
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We came back and walked the next section a week later. We started at the parking lot on Chase Road and headed west on the trail. It was all up hill this direction. We walked until we reached Meadowview Park, which is where we left off last time. We covered two miles of the trail. and walked four miles total out and back. This section ran along side a brook by an un-trailed nature preserve, then a resedential section where the trail ran close to the road. It proceeded near some shops, and through a tunnel. It was a dreary day, but as we reached our turn around point, the sun started to peak out of the clouds a bit. I didn't even notice the faint rainbow (snowbow?) until I saw it on the picture when I got home. The sun was short lived, as we dealt with snow flurries our entire walk back.
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We finished the trail completely the following weekend. We started at the small parking area across from Bristol Park, and walked east to the end of the trail at Maggie McFly's. We then turned around and headed west to the Chase Road lot where we left off last time. This section featured varied landscapes. Some of the trail was through rock cut-outs built for the old trolley line. These sections were separated from the road more than any other part of the trail. Another section went through a commercial area, and the "Greenway" followed a standard sidewalk through that section.
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Meadowview Park
Date visited: 1/7/2023
This is a pretty nice town park that connects to Middlebury Greenway.
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John A. Largay Memorial Preserve
Date visited: 1/7/2023
This is a nice nature preserve that features a loop trail around Lake Elise. The trail must be beautiful in the summer and fall, when things don't look so dead. It's still not too bad this time of year. Unfortunately, we only were able to cover about two thirds of the loop around the lake because the trail was flooded. It's not surprising, given how much it rained earlier in the week. Luckily, we didn't have to back track because there was an additional trail that connects to the bike trail that we used to get here in the first place.
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Bristol Park
Date visited: 1/22/2023
This park is across the street from Middlebury Greenway. We checked it out so I could get some more steps. This is probably the most non-descript section of woods we've hiked. There's really nothing of note. There's an overgrown loop trail that was built as part of a Boy Scout project. While the trail is still blazed, it could use some TLC. The section of the trail by the stream was muddy in spots, and a tree had fallen over on the trail. We were able to get around those obstacles. The nicest part of the park is right at the parking area where the stream flows over some rocks by a picnic area.
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