About the Trail
The Deane Haag Nature Trail is the Clinton Land Trust’s very first trail. The trail was named in memory of Deane Haag, a founding member of the Trust when it was first organized in 1967.
This hike is a loop trail that crosses a stream with foot bridges at the north near Kenilworth Drive and at the south near Airline Road. It has a ledge outcropping along its eastern side that young children can peer into and imagine a cave with hibernating animals waiting for spring. The western side of the trail follows a ridge along a stone wall and looks down at the valley below where the stream meanders through the property. This trail has its own entry point on Kenilworth Drive that is identified by a stone marker or it can be accessed from the blue trail that is found at the eastern cul-de-sac of Kenilworth Drive.
If you hike the entire trail network of the Kenilworth Forest, you will have walked approximately 4 miles in the woods. The blue blazed trail is the longest and stretches from the main entrance south to the yellow blazed Deane Haag connector trail, west to the Christina Court entrance and north to the loop behind Olde Orchard Road. Portions of the blue trail are located on old abandoned roads, one named “Old Burncoat Road” which one can imagine may have quite a story behind it. Old roads can be identified by their width and because they were often lined by stonewalls or cut into the side of a hill. The section of the blue trail that heads west crosses over a stream next to a dam built to create a small pond that was likely used to water livestock.
William H. Smith, an assistant dean and associate professor at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies of Yale University prepared a Guide to the Deane Haag Nature Trail in 1977. The guide identifies and describes 35 species of trees growing along the trail and the geology and soils of the forest.
