Haley Farm

2 letterboxes at Haley Farm State Park, in Groton, CT (New London County).

Terrain:  easy
Clues:  easy
Time:  about 1 and 1/2 hours

DIRECTIONS:   Take Route 1 East through Groton, CT, turn right onto Route 215. After 0.6 mile, turn right onto Brook Street. After 0.5 mile, turn right onto Haley Farm Road, which brings you to the parking lot of Haley Farm State Park.

CLUES:   Entering the park, notice the main trail (a wide gravelly path, marked with a green sign that says "Bike Route") but instead turn to the right on a smaller trail and pass through two stone walls with fence posts. Bypass a turn to the left that would take you through a third stone wall into a large field, and instead go straight until you have a second opportunity to turn left and pass through the stone wall. This small faint path will take you to an old cemetery with gravestones dating back to 1802. The gravestones contain wonderful old poems, if you can make them out (it's worth the effort!). Continuing past the cemetery, curve left then right to find the three-sided remains of a small foundation. Here you will find the Chester Cemetery Letterbox, in a pile of rocks.

Backtrack about 8 paces to find a faint trail going uphill. Follow this, cross over a small stone wall at the top, and then bushwhack about 20 paces straight ahead to get back onto the main trail. Turn left on the trail and follow it until it comes out over flat rock and then winds down into the upper end of the large field that you passed on the way in. Follow the trail across the upper section of the field and then straight through a stone wall. Continue on this trail, passing various other right and left junctions, until it brings you down to the main bike route trail that you saw when you first entered the park.

Turn right on the main bike route trail, and follow it to the end at a green iron gate. Pass by the gate and turn left, to find the covered bridge over the railroad tracks. Cross the bridge and follow the path, through another green iron gate, past a junction on the left, until you pass the City of Groton Utilities equipment enclosure on the right. A short way after this, turn left onto a trail and then immediately leave the trail on the right to climb uphill through trees and up rock, come out on flat rock, veer left to a flat grassy spot (makes a good picnic spot). Cross the grassy area to find more rock. Carefully climb off the edge of the rock to find the Picnic Spot Letterbox under the ledge.

Return to the trail and turn right. Follow this trail until you come to the railroad tracks and find a tunnel under the tracks straight in front of you. Pass through the tunnel. (Although the gate on the tunnel entrance is usually open, if it should happen to be locked, continue following the trail you are on, and at the end turn right to get back to the covered bridge.) Turn right when you come out of the tunnel and follow the railroad fence for a short way until you come to a trailhead on the left. Follow this trail until you come to a junction on the right passing through a stone wall. Take this trail and keep right at the "Y" to arrive at a large rock known as Canopy Rock. To your left is the main trail. Turn right onto it, and follow it back to the parking lot, picking up the Drew Family's Canopy Rock box along the way.