News
See also 2008 Calendar

2008

The Shelton Lakes Recreation Path will be surfaced from Pine Lake to the intersection of Nells Rock Road/Shelton Ave using City funds under a contract for $153,000.  Nearly $70,000 is coming from a Huntington Woods fund that was set up by the developer as compensation for not building the trail in that subdivision. The surface will be crushed stone. Construction is expected to begin some time in October.  In addition, the city has applied for a $75,000 grant from the CT DEP to continue surfacing the trail in the Nells Rock area. 

The Shelton Conservation Commission and Trails Committee received an award from the Connecticut Forest and Parks Association for their work on the Shelton Lakes Greenway and Paugussett Trail restoration efforts.

The Shelton Lakes Recreation Path received improvements between Lane Street and the Boardwalk courtesy of Randy Szkola. See photos.  Eventually this location will be covered with crushed stone.

Boehm Pond Trail is now official. Located off of Far Mill Street (not to be confused with Mill Street) and Winthrop Woods Road, in the Booth Hill/Mohegan area of Shelton.  This trail has been around for awhile, cared for by neighbors, but the Trails Committee has recently blazed and mapped it. 

Birchbank Mountain has a new trail, actually the re-establishment of an old Paugussett side trail, once blazed blue with a yellow dot.  CFPA had closed the trail due to excessive ATV activity which was causing major damage.  The Trails Committee has re-opened the trail, now blazed white.  Not sure if it will have a name yet (Birchbank Trail?).  The new Twisted Vine subdivision located nearby will cut off the major ATV entrance point to the park.

Trails Committee volunteers replaced a Rec Path bridge located below the dam at Const. Blvd & Shelton Ave. The path will be shifted slightly, away from the trees, when it is "improved" with crushed stone or millings. Pictured are volunteers Jim Taradine, Richard Skudlarek, Ryan Gallagher and Bill Dyer.

Webb Mountain Discovery Zone - This new 171 acre park near the Shelton border has a very nice interpretive trail system and scavenger hunt that opened in October 2007. Excellent for families and groups with children. See photos. To learn more, visit the Webb Mountain page on this website.

Jan. 5:  Historic Shelton Canal to be filled??? - Army Corp public comment period ends Feb. 4.  The part to be filled is a quarter mile long and 80 feet wide, with a water surface area of 2.5 acres.   The canal and locks were to be the destination for the Riverwalk Extension. See Shelton Canal and Locks page.

Watch your small pets!  We have a credible report of a hiker with two small dogs off the leash being trailed by a coyote who was probably hoping to catch and eat one of the pets.  This was in the Lane Street area. Keep small pets on a leash while hiking and use caution when letting them outside at home.  Both coyotes and bobcats will eat cats and small dogs. If you see either one and fear it is stalking a pet, the appropriate response is to show aggression by yelling and throwing things. Predators will not normally endanger themselves to catch a meal, and will leave unless they are really starving.

Bobcat sightings:  We continue to receive bobcat sightings, mostly north and west of East Village shopping center.  Bobcats probably live throughout the city, but these particular sightings in East Village may represent a single individual that is unusually large and bold.  Bobcats are usually very shy and nocturnal - but this animal has been seen repeatedly during the day and according to one report the bobcat is larger than a life-sized cut out that has been making the rounds (see it at City Hall - the cut out is the average size of a bobcat, and most people think the cut out is really big).

2007

Plans for the Riverwalk Extension are underway.  See preliminary plans as of Dec 2007 (large 6meg pdf file).  The walk would extended north from it's current location near the Farmer's Market downtown to the locks at the end of Canal Street.  Hopefully the walk can be routed along the shoreline, although there are serious physical challenges (translate that to "expensive").  The City was previously awarded a major grant to build the path.  

The Land Trust Strikes Again!  The Shelton Land Conservation Trust, a private, non-profit group often confused with the Conservation Commission, upgraded a portion of the Shelton Lakes Recreation Path that skirts the edge of their meadow off Lane Street to an 8-foot wide crushed stone path.  See photos. They used grants from Iroquois and New Alliance Bank, as well as lots of volunteer labor.  In addition to the path, they also removed invasive species and planted native species in the meadow. 

A memorial to Harriet Wilber was installed by Land Trust volunteers Pat and Rudy Gajdosic at the Land Trust's meadow located off of Lane Street, near the Rec Path boardwalk. It was built by Rudy Gajdosic and Hank Lauriat with lumber provide by Phillip Jones. 

Extension of the Paugussett Trail has been put on hold due to opposition from residents of Mayflower Lane, who do not want a trail in their neighborhood due to fears that hikers pose a threat to their children.   The trail would travel through City of Shelton Public Open Space, about 100 feet from several homes.   Residents have been mowing that open space for several years and using it as an extension of their lawn, and continue to do so.  Several other locations in Shelton have hiking trails located as close as 40 feet to homes, including the Paugussett Trail in the Poet section of town (through private property by permission of the landowners) and the Rec Path in the Lane Street area. No problems have been reported along these trails.  The Paugussett Trail starts in Monroe and currently ends at Indian Well State Park and the extension would take hikers to the Shelton Lakes Greenway. The opposition has also delayed our plan to add proper trail signs at Shelton Lakes, most of which will refer to the Paugussett Trail. 

The Silent Waters Rec Path Bridge was installed over Silent Waters dam (near Shelton Ave/Const. Blvd No.) on January 10. It weighs 14,000 lbs and spans a dam from the 1800's. See Teresa's video; Tom's video #1; video #2; video #3 and Photographs.  The bridge was fabricated in Colorado and placed over the dam spillway, allowing the Rec Path to traverse the top of the dam.  Safety railings are also being installed.  The bridge and railings are being paid for by a DEP grant. The dam may be seen from the intersection of Shelton Avenue and Constitution Blvd.

2006

The new Rec Path boardwalk was hand-built by volunteers with the Shelton Land Trust and the Trails Committee from October to December 2006.  The new boardwalk is 110 feet long, six feet wide, and supported by several dozen pilings that were hand-driven six feet into the muck. Over 350 volunteer hours went into the project. A grant from Iroquois was used to pay for the lumber and other supplies, along with the removal of nearby invasive species and a slight shift in the routing through the meadow.  For more on this topic, see the Lane Street Boardwalk page.

The Rec Path "Missing Link" has been cleared by Parks & Rec.  This section of trail is located on Board of Ed property between the new Middle School and High School, near the tennis courts.  Trail users have had to detour around this section of missing trail by using school paths.  The path here is quite muddy and requires substantial improvements (involving money) before it will be accessible to all users.  In the meantime, volunteers hope to provide temporary help in the form of sections from the old boardwalk that was just replaced near Lane Street, so that pedestrian will be able to walk the route. See a video.

The Shelton Lakes Greenway is now contiguous from Indian Well State Park to the Shelton Lakes area, allowing the Paugussett "Blue Dot" Trail to be extended south to the Shelton Lakes trail system.  The last piece of land needed to complete the corridor was purchased in 2006 and dubbed "Aside the Overlook". 

The Housatonic Valley Association (HVA), with help from the Ansonia Nature Center,  sponsored two rounds of macroinvertebrate sampling in the Far Mill River and Indian Hole Brook in 2006. Macroinvertebrates are assorted small bugs and worms collected from the river bottom that provide an indication of water quality. The samples were collected and processed by "Stream Team" volunteers and the species identification will be verified by the DEP. See a video of volunteers collecting samples from the Far Mill and what they found.

Nells Rock Trail and Dominick Trail were rerouted to take advantage of property recently purchased from the Pagliaro family.   Dominick Trail was shifted onto an old woods road called "Backtax Alley", which shortened the trail by 0.1 mile.  Nell's Rock Trail, a loop trail, was lengthened by almost a mile.   No trail clearing was required, since the new routes follow old woods roads. Throw away the old 2005 Shelton Lakes maps; the 2006 map is now available.  Click on map at right to view the area that was changed.

New trail projects include the removal of a big pile of scrap metal from the Shelton Lakes Greenway north of Shelton Avenue by Mike Conger and other Boy Scouts (photo - click to enlarge), woodchips spread on Oak Valley Trail near Hope Lake, also by Boy Scouts, and trash picked up along Hope Lake by Brownies from Troop #363 (Booth Hill School). 

Scout Spencer Tate is working on two new bridges for the Rec Path along Wesley Drive, and the Trails Committee built a new bridge for the Rec Path just north of Crab Apple Drive (Bob, Lynn, Bill, Terry, & Ryan). 

The Rec Path boardwalk near Lane Street was damaged by the big April flood and repaired by volunteers with the Trails Committee (Joe, Jim, Bill, Bert & Lynn). Some anonymous person put a really nice bench in near the boardwalk (photo).  The boardwalk will be replaced within the next year.

Newly acquired property includes the Pagliaro and UI parcels north of Buddington Road (click on map to enlarge).  Both properties expand the Shelton Lakes Greenway and provide new trail opportunities.  The Pagliaro property is totally surrounded by existing Open Space and is bisected by an old woods road, allowing the Trails Committee to easily expand Nell's Rock Trail onto the property.  The UI piece allows us to eventually extend Dominick and/or the Paugussett Blue Dot Trail south to Buddington Road and beyond. 

The City of Shelton hired a new part-time Conservation Agent in April to assist the Conservation Commission.   Residents can contact the Conservation Agent, Teresa Gallagher, at 924-1555 x315 or by email at conservation@cityofshelton.org with questions or complaints, especially those involving open space.  The agent will be updating Shelton's Open Space Plan (the current plan is from 1993), managing over 125 parcels of Public Open Space, and otherwise helping out the Conservation Commission as needed.

"Operation Safe Trails"  is an inter-departmental initiative being instituted by Shelton EMS and Police with support from the Conservation Commission with two primary goals at this point:

1. To enhance the ability of EMS to respond promptly to 911 calls from trail users by adding the trail system into their GPS location system.  An injured hiker may not know where they are on the trail system.  However, if they call from a cell phone, the call location can be identified by GPS coordinates.   This initiative will add GPS coordinates and other information for the trails, so that EMS will know what trail the caller is on and how best to reach them.  

2. Stopping ATVs, dirtbikes and other motorized vehicles from riding on the hiking trails, which present a hazard to hikers and bikers.   As part of this effort, gates and signage will be added to "backdoor" park entrances to discourage such vehicles.  The Police will also step up enforcement action by looking at a variety of potential violations, some of which are not so obvious. A list of such violations and the associated penalties has been compiled by the Town of South Windsor.

Another Eagle Scout project, this one by John Lebate, has been completed.   John improved Oak Valley/Dominick Trail along the south end of Hope Lake by adding a bridge and stabilizing the approaches to an existing bridge with road millings.  He also added wood signs. (See Completed Projects for photos).  Additional Eagle Scout projects are in the works. 

"Shelton Trails" gets a new web address.  All the old addresses through borntoexplore.org/trails still work, but the new sheltontrails.org domain name will make it easier for people to remember how to get to the website.  The website has not actually moved, I've just added another way to get to it.

Shelton Land Trust awarded grant for Rec Path.  The Land Trust will receive $10,000 for work on a section of the Rec Path that goes through their property (the Bambi Meadow off of Lane Street). The money will be used to remove invasive species, reroute the Rec Path slightly, and build a new boardwalk. The old boardwalk keeps flooding and is not up to the task. 

A 300 ft side trail to a scenic waterfall and little caves was added to the Rec Path off of Wesley Drive in January.  The waterfall tends to dry up in summer, but while it runs it drops an impressive ten feet.  It is located near the intersection of Wesley and Scotch Pine Drive.

Forget the helicopters, volunteers with cell phones help Shelton Police nab ATVers abusing the trails.  Here's how it works:  One trail users sees ATVers on the trails and calls the police with a description and the direction the ATVers are headed.  He then calls another trail volunteer who lives nearby.  The second trail volunteer drives to the most likely park exit points, sees the ATVers leaving the park, follows them to a house, and calls the police who are now also looking for the ATVers nearby.  Enforcement of ATV restrictions is difficult because ATVers nearly always flee the police and cannot be found.  As a result, ATV destruction of the trails has become very serious, especially in the Buddington Road area.  But coordination between trail users with cell phones and the police can potentially put a stop to that.

2005:
Fall - Volunteers are upgrading the Rec Path between Crab Apple Circle in Huntington Woods and Nell's Rock Trail.  The goal is to make that section of the Path easier for mountain biking so that average people (not just serious mountain bikers) can bike between Shelton Lakes and Huntington Center by using a combination of trails and local roads.  This is a real challenge because the topography is difficult.

Summer/Fall - The City spread mulch over phase 1a of the Rec Path (behind Pine Lake) rather than asphalt millings.  Woodchips are nicer for walking, but difficult for anyone on wheels.

July - A new trail kiosk was constructed at the trailhead for Turkey Trot Trail Adam Cleri & other scouts, on Constitution Blvd across the street from the Middle School.   The Scouts also built a bridge and spread millings at the trailhead.

Woodchips were spread along the powerlines by the Shelton Trails Committee and other volunteers to reduce the risk of ticks.  The labor-intensive project took 3 months.

June 4, National Trails Day, over 100 people joined a guided hike along the bridge-to-bridge (B2B) route. (Read more...)

Early June - New sections of the Rec Path were completed just in time for Trails Day.  The new sections connect Dominick Trail to Huntington Center.   Hikers can now hike from Pine Lake on Shelton Ave to Huntington Center along the Bridge-to-Bridge (B2B) route. 

Royce York & Scouts  installed a fence at the Nell's Rock parking area and the City spread asphalt millings for Nell's Rock trail in April (photo). Over the summer the City removed the pile of old concrete pipes (!!!), graded the area near the road and spread woodchips.   We now have a pretty substantial parking area for the Shelton Lakes trail system.

Volunteers worked on new sections of the Rec Path in the Huntington Woods and Lane Street areas fall, winter and spring in preparation for a Trails Day hike on June 4, 2005 (photo above). 

Royce York and fellow Scouts have cleaned up the entrance to Nell's Rock Trail. Miracles really do happen! After the City cleans up the old concrete pipes it left there I will do a jig wearing something silly.  We will be getting a new parking area in the deal.  Hurray!