Brian Slattery Photos
On Sunday, there I was again at Brooksvale Park, ready to take another five-mile hike, as I do most times I come here. But today I was strapping on snowshoes and making sure the bottoms of my snow pants were tight enough. We may have been spared the worst of the winter storm that dropped 30 inches of snow in eastern Massachusetts, but 9 to 12 inches was still enough to transform the landscape, making the familiar park new again, and offering the chance to see again how the town changes — day to day, year to year, decade to decade.
As I was getting ready to head into the woods, a family of three was just ahead of me, heading across the field at the park. On the other side of it was the rise of land that made up one of the area’s most popular sledding hills, especially for people with younger kids. The hill already had tracks worn in it, and there was already another family there, careening downward, walking back up.
I took the path leading past the barn, the park’s maple sugaring shack, and its numerous animal enclosures. None of the animals were out. The pond nearby was frozen. I crossed the short bridge to the cleared hill that served as a sledding hill for kids who weren’t so small anymore. There was no one there, but someone had been earlier.
And then I was in the woods, following the tracks left by a cross-country skier, and the green blazes on the trees that marked how the trail snaked through the woods. There was road less than a half a mile to my right, an animal pasture on the other side of a stone wall less than a mile away, but for all intents and purposes, I was simply alone in a woods that snow made fresh again.
We’re used to thinking of New Haven as an urban place, a place of streets and buildings and other manmade things. It largely is that, even with East Rock Park, Edgewood Park, and West Rock Park within its borders. But truly rural areas — farms and forest — aren’t far away at all. It’s less than 10 miles from the New Haven Green to Sleeping Giant State Park in Hamden, and only another mile and a half to Brooksvale Park. This proximity has a more powerful effect on New Haven’s culture than it first appears; to pick one example, New Haven foodies’ love of buying local can work because, unlike in larger urban areas, there are actually local farms to buy from. New Haven is close enough to Lyman Orchards for the farm to be able to put some of its pie-baking operations here.
In Hamden, nature is even closer, and offers perspective on how the town is changing. Viewed through the lens of its people, the town is a rapidly diversifying place, and most of the news reported from Hamden happens in its southern half, where all the people are. But viewed through the lens of land use, Hamden has a lot of green space; as one of my neighbors, a former town planner, pointed out, it’s one of the few places where zoning policies have to be designed that encompass everything from apartment complexes and dense neighborhoods to farms and woods. A few large farms, like Hindinger Farm and Vignola’s Farm, are still in operation. Meanwhile, Sleeping Giant State Park is 1,500 acres, and Brooksvale Park is 500 acres abutting the Naugatuck State Forest, a 5,000-acre stretch of land that would let an enterprising hiker go on foot from Hamden to Oxford. More intriguing, over its long history from 1856 to the present, Brooksvale Park is a stretch of land that has slowly changed from a farm back into a forest — and it has gotten bigger. The changes happening in Hamden’s population have their mirror in the changes happening in its land.
Hiking in the parks lets us see those changes, even as it also lets us see what the latest winter storm looks like.
I grew up in a hippie town with a lot of hiking in it, and used to go on a hike (or a run) almost every day. I went to college in an even more rural place and pretty much kept at it. Then I lived in intensely urban places where hiking was almost impossible. Moving to New Haven in 2002 meant I could go hiking again, and the pandemic made it a near-daily occurrence starting in spring 2020. As summer changed to fall, I realized I needed to prepare. This meant both half-memorizing certain trails so I’d be able to find them easily when they were covered in snow, and procuring clothes that would let me stay outside in the cold.
Hiking requires more thought when the temperature drops below freezing (the camping website Reserve America has a great 7‑point list for starters). Journalism about the outdoors is filled with horror stories about winter walks quickly going very, very badly due to lack of preparedness. Avoiding those scenarios starts with having the right clothes. A friend in college referred to cotton as “death cloth” when it came to winter hiking, because cotton keeps moisture (either perspiration or precipitation) close to your skin, and if your skin gets wet, it gets cold. So winter hiking is about having wool or synthetic fiber. It’s also about having waterproof boots, and layers. A great pair of long underwear goes a long way, as does a good hat, wool socks, and a great pair of gloves. You could argue that the single stupidest thing I’ve been doing is hiking alone, because a sprained ankle could mean real trouble; I’ve been hedging my bets by staying on relatively well-trafficked trails that I know well. Also, in the 21st century, the single most powerful piece of emergency equipment we have is a fully charged cell phone.
The snowshoes were a big help, too. While following the previous skier’s path, I came across two other cross-country skiers whisking through the woods, both with slim gear and sunglasses on. But before long there was a fork in the green-blazed trail I was following — a trail that traces the perimeter of Brooskvale Park for about five miles. The skier had turned right, downhill, toward the road. I knew the path I wanted turned left, up the hill, farther into the woods. I was apparently the first person on Sunday to take this turn.
Despite there being a well-worn path in what was left of the previous snowfall, the trail was invisible, perhaps erased by wind during the storm. I was oriented at times just by the blazes painted on the trees and my memory of the path (in this picture the trail starts in the lower right corner and proceeds to the upper left).
Brooksvale Park’s trail crew has done a thorough job of maintaining the blazes for each of the trails; that and a map (either a version supplied by the park, which can be printed or downloaded, or a virtual, GPS-enabled one, available on the app AllTrails) can keep even those who don’t have the trail memorized moving in the right general direction. At several trail intersections, the crew has also installed weather-resistant physical copies of their map, complete with helpful “you are here” markers. (The double blazes above the map indicate that the trail turns, and the direction it turns in.)
Less reliable were the animal tracks that had a way of entering, following, and then diverging with the human-marked trails. Brooksvale Park is a sanctuary that doesn’t allow hunting, and since 2020 I’ve gotten accustomed to seeing a fair amount of wildlife, from squirrels, birds, and snakes to a stray raccoon (which I steered clear of, it being during the day) to herds of deer. Seeing the paths they made in the snow, it was tempting to imagine them simply having a different (and probably better) trail system than ours.
Having nothing but blazes and memory to follow made it reassuring to hit certain landmarks, like this grove of mountain laurels.
Or this stone wall, marking the corner of what used to be a field, now altogether overgrown, though not as long ago as we might think.
The back half of the trail, tracing the border with the Naugatuck State Forest, is Brooksvale Park at its most wild, with stands of trees interlaced by brooks and marshier spots (all of which are currently frozen), an undulating terrain that, in the depths of the pandemic in 2020, was a real balm, a constant reminder that there was a much vaster world beyond the headlines and the crises; that there were still places to go that didn’t require vigilance about the air we breathed. There was no deeper lesson to be taken from that; the simple fact of it was enough.
As the trail circles back to the park, though, unmistakable signs of civilization return, like the set of monumental power lines that the trail crosses twice.
Another welcome landmark is the top of what looks to be an old pickup truck, out in the woods somehow. In all seasons and weather, the angle of the roof makes it seem possible at first glance that the entire truck is buried there (it isn’t). But even if it’s just the roof, it and a few other manmade objects (a rusted oil drum not far away) are reminders that a few generations ago the land was used in a very different way. The vast majority of the the trees at Brooksvale are relatively young; it just doesn’t take them very long to turn a field back into a forest.
As I emerged from the woods, it was warmer than when I had started. I’d opened a layer to let out heat and put my gloves in my pockets. The parking lot that was mostly empty when I arrived was now full, and several families were on the sledding hill, making the snow faster with every run. Halfway through my hike, I’d come across two other snowshoers, using a trail that intersected mine. They had nicer gear and ski poles, and the person in the lead had a Bluetooth speaker hooked to his belt with music playing quietly. But their snowshoes were about the same as mine. They both had big smiles on their faces.
“Beautiful day for this,” the man with the Bluetooth speaker said.
“It’s perfect,” I agreed.
“Well, have a good one,” he said, and they went their way and I went mine. We didn’t really need to talk about it more than that.