It was more of a walk than a hike one fall weekend at Housatonic Overlook and Tucker’s Ridge in Orange. The trails are pretty easy, and since the pinnacle lies just beyond where we parked (at the end of High Ridge Road), if it had just been the view we were after, it could have been a very short trip. But “I don’t feel like I’ve earned it yet,” as a companion said, so we went the other way, saving the best for last.
All the paths here are literally labeled “easy,” according to the kiosk that offered a map, some rules and a somewhat unnerving list labeled “BearWise Basics.” In total, the trails here add up to 1.7 miles, including the minuscule white trail—just .07 miles—and the still-not-very-long red trail, clocking in at 1.15.
There were five of us, and not everyone knew each other when we set out this morning. As we followed the splashes of paint that signaled the red trail, I heard politics working its way into the conversation and said a silent prayer to the tree gods that it didn’t disrupt this beautiful fall outing.
The relative ease of the hike afforded room for banter, self-reflection and light-hearted camaraderie once the politics had petered out, so, after picking our way down a moderately steep and loose-rocked incline, we turned to appreciating this free adventure. I had come the week before, when the trees were more uniformly green. I marveled at the reds and oranges now interspersed, and I told the others about the hawk that had flown overhead with a loud screech. We searched the skies for avian life, a couple of months before winter, when, according to the trail guide, “bald eagles can frequently be seen soaring over the water or sitting in trees on either side of the river.”
“We never really look up,” one of my fellow hikers commented. So, we made a point of looking up, at the sunlight sneaking through the branches, then down to where it painted streaks and sparkles on the bark and moss. We spotted small statues made of balanced rocks and something else unnatural: a teepee off to our right, in a clearing overlooking a marina far below. We squeezed inside for a photo.
The trail system is like a loop with veins running through it, and a description attached to the map I’d printed out told us that the paths along Tucker’s Ridge “overlook the Housatonic River with the Town of Shelton directly to the west and Two Mile Island and Derby to the north.” Alltrails.com describes it as “generally considered an easy route” that “takes an average of 41 min[utes] to complete.” We were talking and wandering off-trail, so it took us longer.
We approached a wooden bridge of sorts, and we crossed it one at a time. We continued on, spotting railroad tracks, and ambled down a steep embankment to get a picture, then passed a stone wall, a Brownie or Girl Scout troop and a steep overlook that we contemplated before pushing back through overgrowth to the trail.
We were on the blue trail now, and the artist in the group pointed to two trees bent toward each other, touching, forming an archway. “A portal to a different dimension?” she teased, and we stepped through it. We tried to identify the trees we passed: beeches, birches, maples. We spotted acorns on the ground and deduced the tree above was an oak. “There’s mountain laurel over there,” one of us remarked, while another found a few mushrooms sprouting nearby.
About an hour after we arrived, we circled back to the beginning and to the summit we’d resisted, where a memorial bench dedicated to Dr. Edmund Tucker, “a public servant whose efforts led to the acquisition of many parcels for open space in the town of Orange”—including this one—views the distant serpentine Housatonic. Across the water in Shelton, I saw the flagpole that marks the approximate location of my stepdaughter’s house. In the water, two canoes, one red and one blue, added more color to the scene, soon to become more and more saturated.
In the end, I concluded our adventure was definitely a walk, not a hike. It was too easy and relaxed to be the latter, even while it delivered rewards worth working for.
Written and photographed by Jill Dion. This updated story was originally published on October 14, 2022.
