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Lake Compounce, CT

Original Post
Morgan Patterson · · NH · Joined Oct 2009 · Points: 8,960

Just perusing the sat images and wanted to see if anyone on here has taken a hike around Lake Compounce or south near the New Britain Reservoir... Looks like there's no way to get access to the Lake C stuff and the res looks difficult as well.. either way lots of rock on this ridge just wondering who's been out there.

Lake Compounce
binged.it/14ovdLY

Nick Votto · · CO, CT, IT · Joined Jul 2008 · Points: 320

Explored there some years ago, parked out on the main road and bushwhacked in on the left side (right near the lake) if I remember correctly. Just as your starting up the hill there's a very large boulder with potentially some cool stuff on it. Found a few others scattered about but considering I never went back I don't remember finding a lot. Rock was pretty nice granite though. Go check it out, that one boulder's worth a trip and there may be more....wait til it's cold enough so the ticks are gone!

wivanoff · · Northeast, USA · Joined Mar 2012 · Points: 674

There is a hiking trail at the end of the Panthorn Trail cul-de-sac N 41° 37.936 W 072° 55.486

The trail head is to the right of the large hedge and goes behind a brown shed. You feel like you're trespassing but it's a legitimate blue blazed trail.

There were No Parking signs all along Mount Vernon Road at least during the season when the park was open.

Edit: Large boulder here N 41° 37.978 W 072° 55.743

Morgan Patterson · · NH · Joined Oct 2009 · Points: 8,960

What type of rock is it? Schist? Quality?

wivanoff · · Northeast, USA · Joined Mar 2012 · Points: 674
CaptainMo wrote:What type of rock is it? Schist? Quality?
Sorry, don't remember.

I was there while geocaching several years ago. I happened to have the coords for that large boulder not because I was bouldering there but because there was a cache placed on top of that boulder.

You'll have to check it out. IIRC, it wasn't a very long hike. The access from the Panthorn Trail cul-de-sac is closest.
Morgan Patterson · · NH · Joined Oct 2009 · Points: 8,960

Did a little digging... Southington Mountain Member of The Straits Schist (Devonian or Silurian or both).

Info: Southington Mountain Member [of The Straits Schist] - Gray to silvery, non-rusty, medium-grained, well-layered alternating schist and granofels, composed of quartz, oligoclase, muscovite, biotite, and garnet, commonly with staurolite and kyanite (or sillimanite); schist commonly graphitic. Metamorphosed strata named Southington Mountain Schist by Fritts (1963) is traceable into southern Bristol quad., and is here revised as Southington Mountain Member of The Straits Schist. Consists of alternating bands of quartz-feldspar granulite and of graphitic, muscovite-biotite schist. Unit is characterized by distinct, widespread, graded bedding and locally abundant staurolite. Unit may correlate with the Goshen Formation of the Heath quad, MA-VT, of Middle Silurian to Early Devonian age (Simpson, 1990).

The reason there's all the rock is that it's an old fault line with New Haven Arkose (Upper Triassic; possibly Lower Jurassic at top)which is the valley floor to the East. here's the map:

geology CT

And here's the link to the Google Earth CT Geology Layer... awesome stuff for u rock hunters out there... What has always surprised me is the amount of Marble in the western part of the state and yet we have little to no known climbing on the Marble. Tons of crap schist though.

CT Geology Layer

Guideline #1: Don't be a jerk.

Northeastern States
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