The Great Catamount Expedition

It is not often that a weekend Bimble deserves a full blown report but Sunday’s Great Catamount Woodbridge Expedition of 2012 is an exception.

I could be wrong but I believe the origin of the idea was a run Cal Kid, Catamount, me and fearsome took several weeks back. On that day there was discussed some way to connect a bunch of trails, with the result being a run of mythic proportion.

Well Sunday was the day and things started off simple enough with only the threat of rain hampering an otherwise perfect day for a long run.

Shortly after 8 a.m. Catamount, Forest, Snobody, Super Mudder, CAL Kid, Shelly Girl, Souper Girl, Nadia, Fearsome and I set off from the Lake Wintergreen Parking Lot for lands unknown.

The first sign of trouble was Cal Kid dropping out what seemed to be almost immediately after we began. He had set up his excuses previously with Bimble posts and an 11th place, half marathon PR, the day before, but his departure would be the talk of much conspiracy theory the rest of the day. After all, it was his course that we were about to take on yet he would not be there. Was the new guy from the left coast setting us up? Time would tell. With Catamount leading the way we starting ascending some trails somewhere in Connceticut. That is about all I know of the entire loop.

The first two hours or so went rather smoothly. Most of this was trail many of us had run, the trail was nice, the weather was great for running and the companionship was terrific. I don’t know exactly where we were, probably Woodbridge, but we crossed a road and started a climb and suddenly lost the trail. In retrospect we should have just climbed straight up and we would have been fine but most everybody decided that they would find the trail so small groups went in what seemed like three or four directions in search of the blue trail. Every few minutes the sounds of “over here” or “this way” would ring through the trees until we eventually all came together on the lawn of perhaps the nicest mansion I have ever seen. After some comments on the house and grounds our focus returned to finding the trail. It was here were I had two thoughts. First, where is Ikea and her orienteering skills when we need her and, second, did the Cal Kid send us off to roam the hinterlands of Connecticut for the foreseeable future. There will be some argument about this for years to come but I don’t think we ever really followed any trail for about half a mile, we just sort of went in the direction of where we thought we were supposed to go. Eventually, we saw Snobody moseying along a path seemingly pretty proud of himself. Apparently he was on a blue trail! What I found odd about this was he came running down on my left and just two minutes previously I had seen him about 75 yards to my right, bushwhacking with Super Mudder. I was impressed by his speed and stealth and downright happy that he was on the trail! We were back in business!

The next hour or so was a series of nice trails through the town of Woodbridge. Seems like we would run a while, cross a road and run some more, repeating that pattern enough times that I began wondering if we would ever leave Woodbridge. We were now well over three hours into the run and besides the fact that I thought the entire run would be three hours life was fine.

Somewher along the way Catamount, who it must be said did an outstanding job leading our merry band all day, told us we would now be taking an unmarked trail. I really did not want to take an unmarked trail and it sounded like a disaster waiting to happen but it was either that or go back into Woodbridge so onward we went. I think we were somewhere around the four hour mark when things started to fall a part again. Perhaps it was the unmarked trail, or perhaps it was finding our self on the 13th tee of the Yale Golf course, whichever it was we were back in bushwhacking mode. For our group this meant spreading out over a 25 or 30 yard radius and just moving in the same direction in hopes of finding the trail. Anybody who runs in the woods knows that lots of things can look like trails when you are off the real trail. There was some mention of Maltby Lakes and I was beginning to think of Maltby as a Camelot or Oz or some other only imagined paradise. If I could only get there I would be fine! We actually dumped out on a real trail rather quickly and both Catamount and Nadia verified that we were indeed in Maltby Lakes. I must admit I thought of Suds and hugged a tree. I think Suds does it for the beauty of nature, I did it because the tree had a white blaze!

Onward we journeyed in search of the Athletic Fields at the Hopkins School. I had no idea why we were heading for these fields but at this point I was merely a sheep and Catamount was the Shepherd. I was in his hands and at his mercy. He could have said run back the way we came and I would have had to follow. We found the fields ran down the parking lot to the entrance of the school and began a road section. This could have been the hardest part of the day. My feet hurt, I was hungry, almost out of water and now I had to run on roads. I wondered at this point if the California Kid was at home watching the NCAA tournament and laughing at us.

By this point every man and women was on their own. We ran roads, bushwhacked through parts of New Haven, ran quickly past a farmers market that had LOTS of good smelling food, hopped a fence, and briefly contemplated running through a little league game in order to cut off some ground before we finally made it back to a trail and the sweet words “only about two miles to go”

We were now back in West Rock, or was it East Rock? In any event there was an looming Rock in front of us and we started slugging our way home. There is not much more to report other than everybody was awesome. Catamount, not only led but ran strong out in front the entire day. Everybody kept great spirit through a long day on the trail and Shelly and I are so glad we were a part of this epic Bimble. It will always be kind of fun to say we were there on that day.

See ya on the trail, just not in Woodbridge!

Lefty