Middlesex County High Point Trip Report

USGS BM Meshomasic in Bald Hill Range (916 feet)

Date: June 30, 2002
Author: Dan Case

CT 66 is nicely positioned to take you about 25 miles from the New London CHP near Willimantic east to East Hampton. The road is two lanes most of the way and passes through mainly undeveloped land, making traffic rather light. (From the east, one can get off I-84 at I-691, which then becomes CT 66 right after Meriden). Once past East Hampton, Cone Road is about a mile or so past the downtown area. Scott Surgent's directions need no amending. I would just say that the street where Cone Road ends is Abbott Road, which pretty much ends at the right onto North Cone Road. I chose to park right at the trailhead, where a vehicle slowed down to see what I was doing. It was the landowner, and I explained myself. She's (as Covill's report would suggest) fully aware that the trail leads on through her and another woman's property to the state land on which the actual HP is located (the blue-blazed trail at the T intersection is apparently the boundary).

She wanted to make sure I wouldn't be stuck in there past sunset (about a half-hour away at this point) and once I said I was making for the BM didn't think that would be a problem. The trail is barricaded and posted, but apparently only to prevent ATV use. The well-worn treadway has plenty of signs of mountain bike use, and I wouldn't discount that as a way of accessing the HP.

The left spur after the dip is actually the crossing of another trail. It remains pretty level most of the way to the blue-blazed trail at the T, which I think is part of CT's long-distance trail network, although I can't remember which one this is. Most of the 80-foot vertical seems to come on the yellow-blazed spur which almost immediately south of the junction forks off to the right and switchbacks around to the HP.

There is absolutely no doubt when you have reached it, due to the old tower footings just beyond it. The benchmark seemed to me, unusually, to be on the actual highest ground although one of the reference markers was on a higher rock.