Checking out additions to the Ireland Brook Conservation Area.
We hiked this park just once, in 2013, (“Ireland Brook and Forest Brook“). We’d turned around due to a difficult stream crossing and just had never gotten around to coming back.
For complete hike info visit our main Ireland Brook Conservation Area page.
Recently a reader of the site let us know that there had been bog bridges added since then.
I checked out the newer park map against the version we had hiked with and noticed a lot of changes.
Mainly that the Ireland Brook trail had been routed away from the stream crossing we couldn’t make, the map showed it crossed Fresh Ponds road and went to another parking area, and a new short trail was added, called Pseudacris Way.
This upped the available hike miles quite a bit.
When we needed some easy miles to fit around the chaos of getting-back-to-things after returning from hiking in Alaska we decided to pop over and check it out.
The trail is pretty clear for the most part. It’s entirely YELLOW until Pseudacris which is RED.
In the first half, YELLOW branches off a few times to make shorter loops.
There are few areas of the trail that are overgrown.
Cross a stream on a log.
The trail is nice if not super exiting. We encountered a ton of toads. And a ridiculous amount of mushrooms.
Huge roots ball from a fallen tree:
As we approached where the trail runs along a farm field (of pumpkins!) there was a curious little spotted fawn.
After running along the field, the trail splits. We turned left to check out Pseudacris Way, a very short trail near a tiny pond.
We decided to follow Ireland Brook all the way to end just to see what is there… it follows a sandy farm road to a park sign with a little room to park.
We headed back. It’s hard to see but the fawn is now in the middle of this field watching us leave:
There is an electric fence around the field – I guess the fawn didn’t get the memo. Oops.
On the way back we heard an odd animal noise in the same spot we’d heard it earlier. We couldn’t determine it’s location or what animal it was other than it sounded distressed.
The thought that an animal was trapped somewhere put a bit of a damper on an otherwise nice hike.
We took the other part of the yellow loop on the way back, which include a brief romp through a field:
And one last photo, because ferns are always nice:
Miles: 4.5
Wildlife Spotted: Three deer, a fawn later, lots of toads.