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2024 marks my eighth annual review for ExploreCT. What a year! Thank you all for taking the time to read and use the site. My hope is that ExploreCT continues to inspire you to get out exploring the state whether you’re hiking, biking, birding, or beyond! My top recommended hikes of 2024: Stats I’m at 29.5% of the state explored, that’s a […]
This is my second county completed, I finished up Windham County in the Fall of 2022. Windham is my home county and where I cut my teeth on this site. Where there were trails I’d never known existed right in my backyard and hidden spots on trails I’d hiked many times before. It felt like […]
I recently took a private flying lesson from Brainard Airport in Hartford, climbing to the air along the Connecticut River. I had just completed the last of the 110 miles of the Connection portion of the New England Trail the day prior. Taking to the sky and getting a sweeping panorama of this thing called […]
The Great Recession of 2024 It has been four years since The Great Crash and recently the site ran into technical issues. It took about a week’s worth of evenings testing things, upgrading, downgrading, and sorting through debug logs to stabilize the site. I’m no professional coder, I’m just willing to figure things out. Thankfully […]
Trailsmen, stewards, guardians of green,In silent service, rarely seen.With hands that mend the trail’s worn face,You guide our wanderlust’s embrace. Through forests deep and mountains high,Ensuring paths remain clear and dry,A labor of love, though often hard,Your efforts are kept in high regard. You carve the trails where footsteps merge,With nature’s chorus, harmonies emerge.In every […]
Previous years: 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 Seventh annual review, inching closer to a decade of work now. Your ongoing readership, unwavering support, questions, and shared tales of adventure really enrich this whole journey for me. Thank you for being an integral part of this growing guide. My top recommended hikes of 2023: Stats I’ll […]
It’s been three years since my last thru-hike on the Nipmuck Trail in June 2020. I’d been thinking about doing the whole Shenipsit Trail since then but finally pulled it together in a rush the weekend after CT Trails Day in June. The plan was straightforward enough: hike the first 25.7 mile half on Day […]
If I asked you how many places you think there are to hike, paddle, and climb in Connecticut, what would you guess? I’ve been asking people lately and I’ve had guesses all the way from 400 to 1,300. What if I told you there are 1,968 places? One thousand nine hundred and sixty eight. I […]
Previous years: 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 Sixth annual review here and I’m so thankful that you all continue to read, support, and engage. Once again looking back not just in terms of exploration, but also in the growth of this site. The exploration highlights of the year: 2022 has been […]
I don’t think I’ve taken enough time to sit back and digest what seems to be a pretty big milestone in the development of this site. Partly because I’ve been pushing against a self imposed deadline of the end of November, partly because this has been in some sense five years in the making, and […]
