Liane Stevens has gone on hikes all over the world, seeking out views of everything from Utah’s canyons to Argentina’s mountains. But despite their grandeur, none of those adventures compare to hiking in Connecticut, she said.
Most seasoned hikers in the United States wouldn’t put Connecticut at the top of any list. The state’s highest point — the southern slope of Mount Frissell, which sits on the Massachusetts-Connecticut border — is dwarfed by taller, more majestic peaks elsewhere around the nation. At only 2,380 feet, the highest point is shorter than those in 36 other states.
But to Stevens, what Connecticut’s hiking scene lacks in height and sweeping views, it makes up for in other small joys.
“It’s got a nice fall when the leaves change. There’s all kinds of spring flowers, you know,” said Stevens, who is from Farmington and worked at The Hartford before retiring over a decade ago. “So it’s got its own little things, and it doesn’t have to be the big, hard, heavy, mountainous height to see beauty.”
Stevens’ love for the state’s outdoors is so pronounced that she’s racked up more than 800 miles of hiking in Connecticut over the past couple of decades. She’s one of about 20 state residents who can boast that accomplishment, according to the Connecticut Forest and Park Association, which tracks hikers’ miles through its official blue-blazed trails challenge.
In the summertime, sections of the Tunxis Trail are filled with lush greenery like ferns and oak trees. Credit: Shahrzad Rasekh / CT Mirror
CFPA, which dates back to 1895, is the state’s oldest nonprofit conservation organization. In 1929, the organization created the blue-blazed trails system, which has since grown into Connecticut’s most expansive network of hiking trails, covering over 800 miles across 96 towns.
CFPA’s blue-blazed trails are unique because they’re “recreational arteries” that connect different parts of the state, according to Clare Cain, the organization’s trails director. While other trails may stick to a single area in the state, CFPA’s aim is to take hikers across long distances to explore a variety of natural spaces within Connecticut’s borders.
To do so, its trails sit on a combination of state park and forest land, private land, property owned by water companies and land trusts and more. The association coordinates with all these entities to carry out maintenance and management.
“The system really is kind of touching so many communities in the state,” Cain said. “There really is something for everyone, and an opportunity to get back into the natural world and kind of escape from technology for a bit.”
Over the years, more trails have become part of the blue-blazed network — including the Connecticut portion of the 235-mile New England Trail, a National Scenic Trail that runs from the Long Island Sound to the southern border of New Hampshire.
The blue-blazed hiking challenge has existed since 2017, though CFPA revamped it in 2021 to make it more accessible to beginner hikers by adding milestones and rewards for those in the state who completed shorter trail distances, Cain said. Now, hikers are recognized when they complete 50, 200, 400 or 800 miles.
The challenge is flexible and self-directed, according to Cain.
“It might take somebody 10 years to do the challenge, and that’s OK. We really wanted it to be something that folks can really design themselves,” she said.
Liane Stevens and David Vogt walk a blue/yellow section of the Tunxis Trail Credit: Shahrzad Rasekh / CT Mirror
Some hikers, like Stevens, started their 800-plus miles before the challenge was officially established. Stevens kicked off the challenge in the 1990s, when it was still known as the “Connecticut 400 Club” and administered by the state’s chapter of the Appalachian Mountain Club. Since then, she’s seen CFPA take over the challenge as more miles have been tacked onto the blue-blazed network.
Others, like Greg Gregory, began in 2020 and quickly worked up to the 800-mile milestone. Gregory hiked about 400 miles on the blue-blazed trails per year — and even more on other trails in Connecticut’s state parks and forests that are not maintained by CFPA.
“I’m just a list keeper. I like working my way through a bunch of tasks. So after finishing that first big project, all the state parks and forests, this was a really natural next step,” said Gregory, 33, a certified veterinary technician who was born in Meriden and still lives there, of the blue-blazed hiking challenge.
It’s hard for him to choose just one favorite hike of all the blue-blazed trails he’s completed over the past three-and-a-half years, he said. But he noted the Mattatuck Trail especially stands out. CFPA’s website says the 42-mile trail, which passes through eight different towns, features “mountain laurel, seasonal views of the reservoirs to the east, streams, and marshes, and deep woodlands.”
Like many of his other ventures as part of the blue-blazed hiking trail challenge, Gregory completed the trail in sections.
His first time hiking the Mohawk Mountain section of the trail in Cornwall a few years ago was akin to a fairytale experience, he said.
“You go through this wet, green, kind of covered in ferns and moss area, and all I could think was that it looked kind of like a fairytale forest,” Gregory said. “Then you come out into a little clearing, and there’s this tower called Cunningham Tower, and I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s Rapunzel’s tower right there!’ It was this very visceral emotion that you’re having the whole time.”
It was an experience that represented exactly what’s drawn Gregory to hiking in the state — the ability to build a connection with nature.
According to CFPA’s most recent report on the blue-blazed challenge, almost 300 state residents sought out that connection as of the end of 2022.
David Vogt, who’s lived in Connecticut since 1995 — first in Hartford, now in Berlin — is on that list.
Vogt, now in his late 60s, started tracking his 800 miles in 2012 and finished in 2020. He completed many of the blue-blazed trails alongside a hiking group that he founded in 2012 at The Hartford, where he worked in insurance prior to retiring. Since then, it’s grown into a close-knit network of friends who hike together almost every weekend, Vogt said.
When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, Vogt’s group had to adapt.
They could no longer greet each other with hugs at the trailhead or go to a restaurant for a post-hike meal. But they found ways to stay connected with each other and with nature, Vogt remembered fondly.
“We’d bring our own chairs, our own lunch. We’d sit around in a circle, 8 to 10 feet apart, and just socialize. And we were doing that every week, so COVID actually provided an opportunity to kind of do the hike differently,” Vogt said. “So if you find a great group to stay together with, you do activities that make that work.”
It was also around the start of the pandemic that Vogt became more heavily involved in CFPA’s volunteer operations.
The majority of CFPA’s trail maintenance, according to Cain, happens through volunteers. CFPA volunteers launched the blue-blazed hiking trail system 95 years ago and have remained the backbone of the organization since.
In addition to a network of volunteer trail managers like Vogt and Stevens, CFPA also runs the Connecticut Woodlands Conservation Corps, a trail maintenance summer program aimed at young adults. The nonprofit also hosts “volunteer work party” days and partners with other community groups on service opportunities, allowing a wider portion of the public to connect with the state’s blue-blazed trails.
In their roles, Vogt and Stevens, who met while both worked at The Hartford, jointly maintain about 20 miles of blue-blazed trails in Burlington. They’ve worked up from occasionally monitoring trail conditions and trimming brush to spending hours in the woods for the past four years. Sometimes, they recruit friends with chainsaws to clear downed trees. But most of the time, it’s just them and the woods.
Both of them are also part of a CFPA subgroup called the “rock stars,” where they build structures like stream crossings and retaining walls along blue-blazed trails across the state.
David Vogt and Liane Stevens fix a crossing on a section of the trail for which they are responsible as volunteers. Credit: Shahrzad Rasekh / CT Mirror
Volunteer maintenance is hard work, according to Stevens. In the spring, when trails see a lot of growth, pruning trees and plants along just a one-mile stretch can take hours, she explained.
But it’s also rewarding, and allows her to give back to the same trails that have kept her going for so many years.
“I’ve hiked all over Connecticut, and I could see it took a lot of effort for people to maintain those trails, so the least I could do is try to give back, do something to help maintain the trails.”
Vogt, too, said that his 800-mile accomplishment and subsequent work with CFPA are more than just checkboxes on a list. They’ve allowed him to feel more deeply connected to Connecticut’s outdoors, and to friends and strangers alike.
“I enjoy doing things that make the world maybe a little bit better,” he said. “When I see people on the trail enjoying themselves, and then knowing that we’ve made the trail better for them, then it’s better for me too.”