Saturday, February 08, 2020

Norbrook Farm Brewery Trails in the snow

On Friday I called Norbrook Farms and asked whether or not their trails would be open. Wasn't sure how cold it has been in the Icebox of Connecticut but they did get some snow this past week so I decided to check. The woman I spoke to said, of course they are open. Whether or not she really new the answer now points to she really didn't know since the consensus from Facebook says that there were closed due to the freeze/thaw taking place this winter.



I found frozen trails with a crunchy under layer and 1 to 2 inches of fresh powder. It was snowing on my drive up to Butternut this morning (I went Telemark skiing for 4 hours before) and snowing once again on the drive back down to Connecticut.



After a quick cursory lap on one of the green trails I came back to the car because I forgot something and the snow stopped.  I didn't have a lot of time because I got their late and I didn't bring lights.




You know what they say, Goats are nice but sheep are beautiful!



I headed off into the woods but found it increasing difficult to follow the trail.  In many places it was easy to follow but in others it was difficult with all the blowdowns, both seeing where the trail went and dealing with all the branches.



I have an old iPhone that I use to follow maps in areas that I have never ridden before but the cold killed the battery pretty quickly. I was surprised it died so quickly though. It was working great and I was able to follow the trail with it until it died.  I started using my regular phone just to get my barings but the all the maps at the trail junctures were really helpful.



With the sun sinking fast I knew I had to start heading back to the car. I found myself down by the pond on and the first three trails that I found were all one way descenders but finally I found the Sherpa trail that would take me back up the hillside.


The trail system has some great board walks!


They were all over the place and the perfect width for riding



As the sun started to set it started getting colder



It was 19 degrees!



The top of the Sherpa Trail dumps out in a field and I didn't see where it entered back into the woods on the other side so I rode towards an intersection and found another map. I ended up riding the forest roads out to a point that I was familiar with.



I popped out just as the sun was setting.


And of course there was a happing ending!

2 comments:

Christopher Hartmann said...

Mark, this place looks great! A road trip may be in order!

Mark said...

Let me know when you are headed up there. I would like to meet you.