Cartier Preserve

Parking: Shoulder parking near 161 Quarry Road Woodstock, CT

Trail Map Trails: 1 mile Rating: ★★☆☆☆

The Cartier Preserve is down a long dirt road that is in ok shape for most of the way but gets a little rugged close to the trailhead. If you have any doubts about your car I’d suggest skipping this location.

Since this property is less than a year old there wasn’t the standard Wyndham Land Trust large metal gate and sign to greet me at the trailhead. Instead just braided wire chain with flagging tape and a ‘No Motorcycles’ sign. The trail climbs uphill and a game cam greets you just off to the right. The trail continues to climb to meet the border of private property and their well-traveled woods road. You’re only on this for a few hundred feet before a hint of the trail heads off to the left along a stonewall.

There are no blazes but the trail is easy enough to follow through the ferns and up another hill. This area was amazing climbing the forested hill the whole understory was open and a sea of ferns as far as the eye could see, practically a fern ocean. The trail crests the hill and descends the other side entering a thicket of mountain laurel.

This brings you to another old woods road heading north for a slightly longer loop or south for the shortcut. Either way meanders through more mountain laurel and dense forest before bringing you back to the dirt Quarry Road. From here it’s just 0.2 miles back along the road to the car.

It appears Wyndham Land Trust preserves land on both sides of the road with the Potrzeba Preserve further west on Quarry Road and the Townshend Tract to the south. Neither are listed as walkable properties by the land trust and the deer flies where horrendous on my July visit so I skipped further exploration here.

History:

Preserved when it was donated to the land trust in 2021.

Cartier Preserve