Saturday, September 8, 2024, 0 cycling miles, 5.5 miles hiking: We drove from 4:30 pm to about 2:30 am then pulled into a rest stop in MA to catch little sleep (4 hrs) before continuing on. Now, if you know Dana, you probably know about Dana Head. No movement or exercise for too long and, well, it’s not pretty. So, she found Bennett’s Pond State Park, a short detour off our route, with lots of hiking trails. We got to the park around 8, picked a trail and started out.
Turns out the park was also host to part of the Ives Trail; Charles Ives, the composer. We hiked around Bennett’s Pond and up to the site of his lean-to. According to the trail’s website:
Inspired by the sounds and vitality of the natural environment of his Danbury-area home, Ives erected a lean-to shanty on the bluff at the top of Pine Mountain overlooking the hills, valleys, and churches of Ridgefield, where he often went to commune with nature and from where it’s believed he wrote From the Steeples and the Mountains in 1901.
Today the lean-to is gone but the site where it once stood, known as the Pine Mountain Lookout, is a prominent feature of the Ives Trail that offers panoramic views extending to Long Island Sound.
After clearing Dana Head, we got back on the road, driving through a pelting rainstorm east of Scranton and got home around 5:30. Nigh on exhausted, we were grateful to have had a great experience, but it was nice to be home. Until the next trip…
Total miles on this trip: Paul – 594.7, Dana – 629.7
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