State of the Gussy

PER CT DEEP:  Please do not cut anymore trees.

There are so many trees down is this section of the forest and on top of the Upper Gussy Trail that without some serious equipment, mountain biking and hiking in this part of the forest will not be happening for quite some time. The CT State Forester actually reached out to me on Friday and asked that I get the word out to cease sawing the trees to open the trails. The State wants to harvest the trees for logging.

I wanted see it for myself so I headed over to the forest Friday afternoon and parked at the Echo Valley Parking Lot. Someone took care of the tree across the driveway so you can finally get to the parking area. I headed in on the Blue Trail to the Right of Way, the stone wall lined portion of the Gussy Trail. There were a few tree crowns in the trail and I cut one up but then when I saw the clearing further up the trail I knew it wasn't going to be pretty.

Panorama from the Wet Spot

When I got to the Wet Spot and saw the number of trees down across the trail I could see that until they are removed this area is pretty much closed.

Those trees that didn't come down completely were snapped like match sticks and to get around all of them with a re-route would require building an entirely new trail. I even scoped it out but when this area gets logged everything is going to obliterated anyway and cleaning up the existing trail will be the number one priority.  

Then I headed in the other direction, towards the Brew Crew Roller and found sections of the trail in that direction blocked as well.

Even the Blue Blazed trail is completely blocked.

All the rollers up here are covered in trees

Even the Reach Around is impacted

And not only is Jeep Trail blocked at the trail head there trees strewn along the length of it, too.

You can almost get down to the Jeep Trail from the Gussy

This section can be managed with a hand saw but right now this is a trail to no where.

The big question is what is the State's time line to get a logging company into Upper Paugussett and how much damage will the logging vehicles make to the trails? At least there is one loop that can be ridden at Upper Paugussett. I might have to annex DSP and have it become part of the Gussy.