April 18 – As my son Tom and I recently climbed a steep slope to the summit of Mount Higby, a sweet sound rose above the whistling wind, stopping us in our tracks.
“Is that music?” I have asked.
We followed a rhythmic melody to a steep ledge, where a young woman sat cross-legged perilously close to the edge and gently tapped a metal percussion instrument balanced on her lap.
The notes seemed to float through the air as Tom and I gazed at sweeping views stretching south toward Sleeping Giant Mountain in Hamden to the New Haven skyline. The four hanging hills of Meriden, East Peak’s Castle Craig, and Lamentation Mountain extend closer to the west.
Maria Shaw, who strapped the manhole cover-sized drum to her back as she hiked up the mountain with her husband, Sal Clarino, said the setting was ideal for a musical interlude.
“It’s a beautiful place,” she said.
After enjoying the outdoor performance, Tom and I resumed our climb along a traprock ridge that runs from Long Island Sound through the Connecticut River Valley, all the way to the Massachusetts-Vermont border. This distinctive geological formation, formed about 200 million years ago, is often called The Spine of Connecticut.
Our four-mile out-and-back route covered part of the blue-blazed Mattabesett Trail, which is part of the England National Scenic Trail that winds 300 miles through Connecticut and Massachusetts.
After departing from a parking lot on the west side of Route 66, a short distance from Guida’s Dairy Bar, we first climbed the 800-foot south peak of Mount Higby, called The Pinnacle. On this clear, sunny day we could see across the Sound to Long Island, a distance of about 40 miles.
The rugged terrain then dropped about 200 feet to a valley called Preston Notch, which passed through a forest dominated by oak, hickory, and red cedar. Barely visible were the remains of a bus road that connected Middletown and Meriden more than a century ago.
The trail hugged the edge of a steep cliff for over a mile, forming one of the most dramatic ridges in Connecticut. Not to quibble, but some of the scenery far below and across the valley was less than inspiring: traffic on I-91; commercial and industrial development; a huge quarry slowly eating away at the east side of Chauncey Peak; and the State Police Training Academy, which conducted a target practice that drowned out all other sounds for several minutes.
I was grateful that this cacophonous fusillade had not interrupted Maria’s spontaneous concert earlier.
From the notch we climbed up and down several false summits before finally reaching the mossy pinnacle, the 800-foot north summit of Mount Higby. A vast swathe of shrubbery stretched east of the cliff, surrounded by patches of bearberry. In the fall, this ground cover will produce clusters of small, bright red fruits that will feed birds, squirrels and other animals all winter long.
Tom and I brought our own snacks, but later sampled wild ramparts growing not far from the trail, an ephemeral delicacy that emerges in the spring.
On the way back to the parking lot we passed the ledge where Maria had played her hang drum. She and Sal were gone, but when I closed my eyes I could still hear her enchanting tune through the air.
Maps of Mount Higby and nearby Beseck Mountain are available at https://meridenlandtrust.files.wordpress.com/2018/06/higby_beseck_tri.pdf.
More information is available from the Connecticut Forest & Park Association, ctwoodlands.org.
Book review Tuesday
I will be visiting the Groton Public Library on Route 117 on Tuesday at 6:30 PM to talk about and sign copies of a new edition of the hiking guide I edited and revised, “AMC’s Best Day Hikes in Connecticut & Rhode Island,” published from the Appalachian Mountain Club. I hope to see you there.
