You Are Here: Lyon Brook Trail - Hospital Community Trail

Laura and I headed back to New London for my second to last hike of the New London Conservation Commission Trails. I was somewhat hesitant as the only trip reports I could find referenced some not so favorable sections, and I wasn't sure what conditions would be like with the recent thaw/freeze cycles we had been experiencing. I decided to park on Parkside Road, the northern terminus of Lyon Brook Trail. I had also seen a digital track of someone who had done the Hospital Community Trail from this exact spot, even though the map on the NLCC website shows it ending in a different location. Turns out, they have opened an extension of the Hospital Community Trail that goes from the original ending spot to Parkside Road, thus it was perfect for us to be able to do an out and back on both. We were the only car parked and as we were gearing up, we saw someone coming out of the trail with his pup. It ended up being Brandon Baker, who I am familiar with through the trail racing community. He mentioned he was one of the maintainers of the Lyon Brook Trail, and thus any hesitation I had left, as I knew if he was one of the overseers, then the trail would be in fine shape. This turned out to be true. My guess is the folks who had less than great things to say had experienced the trail in Spring or after some rains, as it does follow Lyon Brook for much of the way, and I can imagine gets rather wet/muddy at times. We decided to wear spikes, which was a great choice, with a light coating of crusty snow most of the way. There were just a few short sections where snowshoes may have been the better choice, but not long enough stretches to be a massive hindrance. The trail winds alongside Lyon Brook basically through the center of New London. There is an access point to the Knights Hill Nature Park very soon after the start of the trail (which I had done last March) as well as Woodward Park. The trail crosses Lyon Brook several times and there are lots of well maintained bridges to do so, including a short suspension bridge called "Maxes Bridge". In the middle of the trail, it exits onto S Pleasant St. The trail follows the road for about 0.1 miles, takes a right onto Frothingham Road, follows that to the end before passing through a gate, which does have a detour sign, should the gate be closed. We found it open. There are some trailers and many solar panels in this area, the less than scenic part of the trail. Beyond that is a gravel road, which was of course snow covered for us. This section was a little less packed down, and was where snowshoes might have been beneficial, but we did OK in spikes too. The trail re-enters the woods and follows Lyon Brook again down to Brookside Road. Cross Brookside Road, staying alongside Lyon Brook. Brookside Road is a horseshoe shaped road, so a second crossing is required, with one last short section leading to Route 11. Even though you are never really far from civilization, at times you couldn't tell and it was just a really pretty, easy walk through the woods. It had started lightly, but consistently raining when we were on the road walk section, so we never really lingered anywhere along the trail. Once at the end, we retraced our steps to the car. From here we crossed Parkside Road to enter the Hospital Community Trail. A 0.6 mile connector to New London Hospital and Newport Road. The new cut section passes through some woods and open spaces that has evidence of clearing before reaching a powerline swath. The trail had previously ended at this point. From here you just follow the powerline swath up to the short connector over to New London Hospital or up to Newport Road. You can see the end of the trail the entire length of the swath, which was a good thing.. we found it a slog in a couple of inches of unbroken snow and a very slight incline up.. which seemed much more than it was on our tired legs, so to see our destination was encouraging. There is nothing remotely pleasing about this trail, but I'm sure it makes for a nice change of pace if you are visiting someone in the hospital and need to get some fresh air. Once we reached Newport Road, we turned around and headed back to the car.

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